Problems between Apple and brothers Vincenzo and Giacomo Barbato began when the brothers started a clothing company named Steve Jobs.
They seized on the fact that Apple had failed to trademark Apple founder Steve Jobs' name and started the years-long legal battle that culminated recently.
Steve Jobs
After starting their own clothing company, the two brothers decided to name it Steve Jobs. Somehow Apple hadn't trademarked the name Steve Jobs.
"We did our market research and we noticed that Apple, one of the best known companies in the world, never thought about registering its founder's brand, so we decided to do it," said the brothers in an interview for La Repubblica Napoli.
The brothers said that in August 2014, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market issued its ruling on the case.
"The opposition is rejected in its entirety," the brothers said.
In an interview with Business Insider Italia, the brothers described the process that they had to go through to register the trademark.
"We first registered the brand with the logo, then the brand on its own and then only the logo. Apple has always attacked us regarding the logo, on the name has never raised any controversy," said the brothers.
Their logo was also attacked by Apple during the lawsuit. It is a capital J, with what seems like a bite mark, but it isn't. The court decision came down to the fact that the logo is a letter and not a piece of fruit. This means that the chunk missing from the side can't be a bite.
The Future Of Steve Jobs
The Barbato brothers say that they now have the legal right to use the name Steve Jobs and logo as they would like. At the moment, they are making clothing under the name Steve Jobs. This includes T-shirts, jeans, bags, and other accessories.
They're going as far as wanting to branch out into electronics.
"On our territory there are valid companies, plus we are in talks for a production of electronics products with a Chinese brand, they are very interested," said the brothers to Business Insider Italia.
All in all, they're not looking to disrespect Steve Jobs.
"We will still respect the name of Steve Jobs: we will not do anything low-level, you will never see the phones or TV shoddy with the brand Steve Jobs. We will have very high guidelines. Clothing and design are the industries in which we worked, but electronics have always been the goal of the Steve Jobs brand," said the brothers.
While they may not want to disrespect the name, they will be going into the smartphone market.
"The first thing that comes to mind is a smartphone, but potentially could also come smart TV (device that Apple has never produced), smartwatch and virtually all that is hi-tech," said the brothers.
One day, we may be able to see a Steve Jobs phone competing with Apple.
