What you need to know
- Apple cannot stop Swatch from trademarking the famous 'One More Thing' phrase used by Steve Jobs and Apple.
- A London Judge said the use of a trademark in this instance was appropriate.
Apple has lost a court fight where it was attempting to stop Swiss company Swatch from trademarking the "One More Thing" phrase famously used to surprise watchers and attendees of Apple events.
Reported by Bloomberg:
"One more thing," Steve Jobs would say at the end of many an Apple Inc. keynote, giving his cue for announcing a surprise new product. But Apple can't keep its founder's turn of phrase for itself, a London judge ruled Monday as he sided with Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group AG in a long-running dispute over trademarks.
The fact that Swatch had previously registered the trademark emerged in 2015, and Judge Iain Purvis told the court that the registration might well have been an attempt by the company to "annoy" Apple, but that didn't mean it wasn't lawful. Judge Purvis seems to have agreed with Swatch's earlier explanation that the phrase was coined by fictional TV detective Columbo. Purvis noted that a previous court officer was wrong when they said "Swatch's intentions had stepped over the line between the appropriate and inappropriate use of a trademark."
The phrase "One More Thing" has been a famous quip at Apple events for many years, and was often used as a way of surprising excited attendees and viewers with a new product or feature they weren't expecting. Apple even named its November Apple silicon event 'One More Thing'. Notable 'One More Thing' surprises of the last few years include the 2006 MacBook Pro, the Metal MacBook from 2008, FaceTime, the first MacBook Air, Apple Watch, Apple Music, and the iPhone X,
