Dylan v Apple
Ron Chester
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Bob Dylan sues Apple: trademark infringement
Songwriter opposes firm's use of name for programming language
By Rory J. O'Connor
When he found out what Apple Computer Inc. planned to call a new
product, Bob Dylan saw blood on the tracks.
Now a federal judge in Los Angeles might get to decide between the
world-famous songwriter and the world-famous company that is using the
name Dylan for a computer programming language.
Dylan, 53, filed a trademark infringement suit against Cupertino-
based Apple late Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The
suit seeks unspecified damages and asks for a court order to keep Apple
from calling its language by the singer's name.
Apple is blowin' in the wind thanks to Dylan's Los Angeles attorney,
Joseph Yanny. The suit was triggered when the entertainment lawyer
apparently spotted a 1993 trademark filing by Apple seeking to register
the Dylan name.
Short for Dynamic Language, the Dylan software was developed two
years ago by Apple's research laboratory in Cambridge, Mass. It is
intended for creating programs for handheld computing devices known as
personal digital assistants, like Apple's Newton.
Unfortunately for Apple, programming languages these days are
supplied on CD-ROMs in boxes that resemble those of audio CDs. When
Dylan's attorneys saw a CD-ROM labeled "Dylan," they decided that wasn't
street legal and sued.
Apple said it had no comment on the matter late Thursday because it
hadn't seen the lawsuit.
This isn't the first time Apple has suffered a hard rain with
celebrities over its trademarks.
The firm tussled in a London court recently with the Beatles and
their record company, Apple Corps. The Beatles claimed Apple's
multimedia products violated a 1970s agreement in which the company was
allowed to use its name, as long as it never developed music-related
products.
Earlier this year, Apple was sued by astronomer Carl Sagan, after
Apple attached the internal code name Sagan to a computer it was
developing. In a response that could cause Sagan to ask for perhaps
billions and billions in damages, Apple changed the code name to BHA,
short for butt-hole astronomer.
Apple's attorneys, of course, might be forgiven if they suggest Dylan
was a bit quilty of borrowing a good moniker.
After all, Dylan is not the singer's given name; he was born Robert
Zimmerman. As an aspiring beat poet in the early 1960s, Zimmerman
snatched his artistic name from poet Dylan Thomas.
Like any trademark case, this one will depend on whether Apple's use
of Dylan creates any mixed-up confusion on the part of consumers. Word
is that Dylan's attorneys won't press for damages, having sued on
principle.
But for longtime fans of the counterculture poet, the suit shows
another side of Bob Dylan.
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There was a headline at the top of the front page of the paper, pointing
to this article, which ran on page one of the business section.
However, the puzzle section of the paper missed out by failing to ask
how many stolen Dylan quotes were hidden in the article.
Dylan's attorney has obviously not been keeping up with his rmd reading,
as this language was discussed quite some time ago by rmd'ers.
And didn't our Bobness originally borrow the name from Gunsmoke's Matt
Dillon, or was it really from his uncle?
Shelton (p. 49) quoting Echo Helstrom...
"I remember when he decided what his name was going to be. It was
1958, and he was a junior. He came over with John Bucklen one day
and said: 'I know what I'm going to call myself. I've got this great
name-- Bob Dillon.'"
Shelton goes on...
He didn't change his name legally until 1962, and didn't even begin
to use it regularly until 1959. Ethel Merman, also saddled with the
rather ungainly luggage of "Zimmerman," simply lopped off the first
syllable, remarking: "Can you imagine the name Zimmerman in bright
lights? It would burn you to death!"
Bob's name probably had two sources. Although Matt Dillon is thought
to be a real frontier hero, he was the fictional invention of television
writer John Meaton and producer Norman Macdonnel for the adventure
series Gunsmoke. The show began in 1952 on Columbia Broadcasting System
radio, and premiered as a CBS-TV series on September 10, 1955.
Closer to Dylan's home frontier was a pioneer Hibbing family named
Dillion. A James Dillion was the town's first drayman. Four families
named Dillon were listed in the 1968 Hibbing phone book. Bob parried
about the Dillions with a reporter from The Chicago Daily News in
November 1965:
Q: What about the story that you changed your name from Bob Zimmerman
to Bob Dylan because you admired the poetry of Dylan Thomas?
A: No, God, no. I took the Dylan because I have an uncle named
Dillion. I changed the spelling but only because it looked
better. I've read some of Dylan Thomas's stuff, and it's not the
same as mine.
Dylan reiterated this popular misconception to me: "Straighten out in
your book that I did not take my name from Dylan Thomas." Although he
registered at the University of Minnesota as Robert Zimmerman, students
and friends there knew him as Dillon. He told a few friends that Dillon
was his mother's maiden name. Others heard that Dillon was a town in
Oklahoma. Only after he had achieved some early recognition in New York
did Minneapolis friends learn that Bob was spelling his name Dylan. In
the interim, he had become acquainted with the life and work of Dylan
Thomas.
<end of Shelton quote>
Somewhere I recall reading that RZ was a big fan of Gunsmoke, but I
can't put my finger on it right now. Perhaps someone could follow the
court documents on this case, to see if there ends up being any
testimony on this subject.
Ron Chester
(Who endured a lot of Gunsmoke "Chester" jokes as he was growing up!)
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ţ MR/2 ţ Palo Alto, CA