Cotton On in the wrong with trade mark infringement?

Cotton On is facing litigation in the Federal Court of Australia from a sole trader in the United States who claims that the 1,400 store clothing chain copied her trade mark protected brand, ‘LETTUCE TURNIP THE BEET.’  

New York designer Elektra Prinz Gorski filed an application with the Federal Court of Australia in April this year for loss and damage, claiming that Cotton On knew or ought to have known that Cotton On’s t-shirt products bearing the phrase ‘LETTUCE TURNIP THE BEET’ infringed Ms Gorski’s trade mark and copyright.

A bite out of Apple

US technology giant Apple has lost its latest court battle over the rights to use the ‘iPhone’ trade mark in China.

The circumstances are not foreign to Apple - in 2012, the company paid $60 million to settle a similar dispute regarding the right to use the ‘iPad’ name in China.

In this matter, Apple applied for the ‘iPhone’ trade mark in China in 2002 for computer hardware and software in China.  However, Chinese company Xintong Tiandi applied for a trade mark for leather goods bearing the word ‘iPhone’, which was approved before Apple’s 2002 application.