When the name Steve Jobs comes to mind, most people think of the founder of the massive technology company Apple. Steve Jobs Inc. is a completely different entity.
Steve Jobs Inc. is a fashion brand (and aspiring electronics company) based out of Italy. The company registered the trademark under the name “Steve Jobs” with the European Union’s Office for harmonization in the Internal Market back in 2012. The brand has a registered logo that consists of a “J” that looks like it has a bite taken out of it with a single, angled leaf at the top. This logo is similar to Apple’s.
Apple tried to fight the trademark application, but Business Insider Italia reported that the massive tech company lost. The fight ended back in 2014, according to Vincenzo and Giacomo Barbato, the brothers who both founded Steve Jobs, the company. The brothers wanted to wait until after they extended their trademarks around the world and were free to use them before they announced this battle, the Telegraph reported.
The company is solely focused on fashion– especially denim– for the time being. Their social media pages show off Steve Jobs jeans and a Steve Jobs bag made from denim. The brothers told Business Insider Italia that they created the brand in hopes of becoming an electronic label.
“Clothing and design are the industries in which we worked, but electronics have always been the goal of the Steve Jobs brand,” the brothers explained.
The brothers are fully aware of the problems they could stir up with Apple: “Imagine devices marked with the name Steve Jobs with Android as an operating system.”
Apple’s conflict with them was never the name but the logo they trademarked. However, the court ruled that the letter “J” isn’t edible and sided with the brothers, allowing them to use their logo.
