‘Think different’ about that slogan, EU court orders Apple

Apple has been telling consumers to “Think Different” since 1997, a direct response to IBM’s “Think” campaign, but disuse of the slogan cost it in a copyright battle.

LUXEMBOURG (CN) — Tech giant Apple lost to Swiss watchmaker Swatch on Wednesday in a court fight over its use of the “Think Different” slogan.

The Cupertino, California-based company had appealed to the European General Court after Swatch successfully challenged Apple’s “Think Different” copyright before the European Union Intellectual Property Office in 2018 on the basis that the slogan was no longer being used. 

Apple first trademarked the slogan in the European Union in 1997, running a memorable advertising campaign with TV commercials, print advertising and billboards that featured Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Richard Branson and Martin Luther King Jr., among others. The height of the campaign was over by 2002, though the logo still appeared on some packaging materials, and Swatch moved in 2016 to have the trademark annulled. 

No stranger to marketing of a bygone era, Swatch was the watchmaker du jour in the 1980s with its colorful band-swapping accessories. A contraction of “second watch,” Swatch was founded in 1983 to manufacture cheaper and more casual watches as compared with the luxury products for which the Swiss are famous.

The Biel-based company has been fighting Apple for years over marketing and branding.

A court in London sided with Swatch in 2015 when Apple attempted to trademark the name iWatch, finding it was too close to “iSwatch,” the name of the Swiss company’s smartwatches. Apple called its watches “Apple Watch” instead.

In the latest dispute, Swatch argued that Apple’s slogan had “not been put to genuine use” for a number of years. Its evidence included photos of boxes for old iMacs where “Think Different” appears only in fine print on the bottom. In 2018, the EUIPO agreed that Apple was no longer using the slogan and revoked the trademark. “The occasional use of the contested marks on the applicant’s website during the relevant period to commemorate famous people or special events was an isolated and ephemeral use,” the EUIPO found.

Apple argued on appeal that the patent body had failed to take into account the prominence of the ad campaign and was too dismissive of the location of the phrase on its packaging. The Luxembourg-based General Court disagreed. It concluded that Apple had not been regularly using the slogan for more than 10 years. The EUIPO’s decision was “not contradicted by a body of evidence aimed at proving that they have been put to genuine use,” the court wrote. 

Both sides can appeal the decision to the EU’s highest court. 

Just last year, Apple lost a case in Switzerland where it had tried to block Swatch from using the slogan “Tick Different,” arguing it was too close to “Think Different.” Separately last year, a judge in the United Kingdom refused to let Apple block Swatch from using the slogan “One more thing,” a phrase closely associated with Apple founder Steve Jobs. The British court concluded that Swatch had likely trademarked the phrase to annoy Apple, but that wasn’t sufficient reason to block the copyright.