Comparing Apples with Pears? Tech Giant Threatens Legal Action Against Small Business Owner

Can you actually compare apples with pears? Well, tech giant Apple certainly believes so. The trillion-dollar company has threatened legal action against a small business because of their pear logo. Natalie Monson is the founder of Prepear, a five-year-old app that helps “you can store all your recipes in one place, plan your meals, make grocery lists, and get your groceries delivered all in one place.”

Apple claims that the Prepear logo "consists of a minimalistic fruit design with a right-angled leaf, which readily calls to mind Apple's famous Apple Logo and creates a similar commercial impression.”

Up For The Fight

Rather than being scared off (like many before her), Monson decided instead to leverage social media to help her cause. She put out a call for help on instagram, “The trillion dollar Apple, has decided to oppose and go after our small business’ trademark saying our pear logo is too close to their apple logo and supposedly hurts their brand? This is a big blow to us at Prepear. To fight this it will cost tens of thousands of dollars. The CRAZY thing is that Apple has done this to dozens of other other small business fruit logo companies, and many have chosen to abandon their logo, or close doors. While the rest of the world is going out of their way to help small businesses during this pandemic, Apple has chosen to go after our small business”.

Monson goes on to ask everyone who views her post to sign an online petition to save the pear logo but also to help take a stand against big tech companies. The petition requests for Apple to drop its opposition of the Prepear Logo and it currently has received about 70,000 signatures (only has 5,000 remaining to reach their target).

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View this post on Instagram

Dear Instagram Friends- I NEED YOUR HELP! I know there are a lot of heavy things going on in the world right now, and this is nothing in comparison, but I need your help in a situation that is affecting me, my family, and my coworkers. Please help! Many of you know that I started a business called Prepear almost 5 years ago. It is an app that you can store all your recipes in one place, plan your meals, make grocery lists, and get your groceries delivered all in one place. Recently @apple yes, The trillion dollar Apple, has decided to oppose and go after our small business’ trademark saying our pear logo is too close to their apple logo and supposedly hurts their brand? This is a big blow to us at Prepear. To fight this it will cost tens of thousands of dollars. The CRAZY thing is that Apple has done this to dozens of other other small business fruit logo companies, and many have chosen to abandon their logo, or close doors. While the rest of the world is going out of their way to help small businesses during this pandemic, Apple has chosen to go after our small business. I’m not trying to get anyone to stop using or buying Apple products. I feel a moral obligation to take a stand against Apple's aggressive legal action against small businesses and fight for the right to keep our logo. We are defending ourselves against Apple not only to keep our logo, but to send a message to big tech companies that bullying small businesses has consequences. HOW YOU CAN HELP: 1 Sign the petition (link in my bio or in my stories) 2 Share that same link on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. http://chng.it/QPd2mRYW #savethepearfromapple

A post shared by Healthy Kids Recipes•Routines (@superhealthykids) on Aug 7, 2020 at 12:56pm PDT