Beatles’ Apple Now Apple’s Apple

Apple and Apple Corps, the Beatles’ holding company and owner of the band’s record label, settled their dispute over the iconic apple logo back in 2007, but they’re only just now putting the finishing touches on it.

On Wednesday, Apple was finally granted the trademark to Apple Corps’ Granny Smith logo, after fending off an attack from a company named Apple Box Production. News of the transfer was first reported by Patently Apple.

So, after more than 20 years of on-and-off legal sparring over trademark issues, Apple finally has complete ownership of the Apple Corps trademark and logo. And that’s something that would have made the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs quite happy. As he said at the time of the 2007 settlement, “We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks. It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future.”

Jobs’s words do seem to have proven true. Apple’s exclusive deal to sell the Beatles catalog on iTunes is now well into its second year, something my colleague Peter Kafka notes is unprecedented.