Apple owns many valuable trademarks, but who would have thought the name of its own co-founder would come under threat? Patently Apple reports that a man in Turkey has seemingly trademarked ‘Steve Jobs’ to be used with a clothes brand, and if confirmed I’m sure Apple won’t be too happy.
The filing was made on October 24, 2011, well over a year ago, by Kamil Kürekçi, and it does seem to have been granted, however that’s still unclear.
Translation of the owner’s statement by Patently Apple:
Opening overseas with this name will be an advantage for us considering that we will be mainly exporting. We think that Steve Jobs is a worldwide known brand that will never be forgotten. It is also obvious that it will facilitate our work on overseas advertisements of our products.
This could be a wind up, but if it’s legit Apple’s lawyers are going to have a field day taking this guy down. I always thought you couldn’t register people’s names as trademarks, but perhaps it’s different in Turkey.
