The Beatles may not have played together since their famous rooftop concert in January of 1969 for the Let It Be album but their legal team continues to battle on. Back in those crazy early days of Beatlemania, you could get pretty much anything Beatles: Beatles wigs, Beatles boots, Beatles toys, Beatles buttons, Beatles lunchboxes, Beatles Beatles Beatles!

Nowadays, though, it’s pretty much impossible to find the name Beatles on anything that hasn’t been put through the machinery of the band’s legal team at Apple Corps, Ltd. That team just marked a success in a case that has been dragging on since 2004 when a court decided it wasn’t cool for a Dutch manufacturer to churn out, um, Beatles wheelchair, according to The Hollywood Reporter. (OK, so only two members of the band are still around and the younger one, Paul McCartney, is 69. You don’t have to rub it in.)Continue reading...

After Whitney Houston’s unfortunate death last Saturday, anyone turning on a TV or radio got to hear her signature tune, “I Will Always Love You,” countless times, whether it was Jennifer Hudson singing it on the Grammys or Amber Riley performing it, apparently coincidentally, on the Valentine’s Day episode of Glee on FOX.

Of course Houston had a slew of other massive hits, such as “How Will I Know,” “The Greatest Love of All,” and “I Want to Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” but the fact that one tune kept spilling out of the speakers over and over again didn’t speak well of her brand’s ability to stick around for generations to come.

Metro reports that Houston, whose funeral is taking place on Saturday (with a live-stream for fans via the Associated Press), has a chance to “have a legacy that can outlive our collective memory of her somewhat tainted past” of drug and alcohol abuse. That legacy may lie in the hands of marketing pros “who specialize in the act of ‘sanitizing’ the image of a deceased celebrity."Continue reading...

One constant of the outpouring of grief over the death of Steve Jobs has been modified Apple logos, including creative use of apples in front of Apple stores. What few realize is that this capacity to fiddle with Apple's most recognizable bit of brand identity, and at the same time not lose any of that identity, speaks to the power of even the simplest element of what the Apple brand is.

But it wasn't always this way. The history of Apple's logo mirrors that of a brand that started off with promise, faltered at times, and went back to core principles to achieve global iconic status.Continue reading...

Turns out Apple doesn’t own the letter “i” after all.

Having just announced its iCloud computing service, joining its existing iTeam (iTunes, iBook, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iWeb) on its lengthy trademark list, Apple is being sued by iCloud Communications, a Phoenix company that provides telephone services via the Internet; a classic David vs. Goliath case.

Apple in no newcomer to trademark disputes, and as befits a Goliath, has always won – or settled, including litigation for the appleimac.com domain name in 1998; the domain name itunes.co.uk in 2005 vs. Cyberbritain Group Ltd; the iPhone trademark in 2007 vs. Cisco Systems; the iPad trademark in 2009 vs. Fujitsu; the iAds name in May 2010 vs. Innovative Media Group, LLC; and (in an ongoing dispute) Amazon over the term “App Store.”

The tech behemoth’s very name itself, was the subject of dispute when Apple Corps, founded by The Beatles, filed a trademark infringement suit in 1978 — a spat that was finally laid to rest with Apple's iTunes deal with The Beatles in November.Continue reading...

Apple fans observing today's iPad 2 were eager to see how much lighter and thinner the tablet had become — and Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who made a rare appearance at the event. "We've been working on this product for a while, and I didn't want to miss the day," he told the crowd.

Fittingly, he took the stage with Beatles music cues (entry, Here Comes the Sun; exit, A Hard Day's Night) in a nod to Apple's recent iTunes deal for the band's catalog.Continue reading...

Amazon launches mobile price-comparison engine that threatens store retailers.

Apple sells 2 million Beatles songs in first week.

Dolce & Gabbana namesakes indicted on tax evasion charges.

EBS and other Irish banks are up for sale as bailout request puts nation on brink of collapse.

Foursquare takes on the TSA with “Baggage Handler” badge, as TSA launches iPhone app to advise travelers.

Gibson sues PaperJamz paper guitar-maker WowWee and retailers including Toys'R'Us and eBay.

Google allows promoted tweets to real-time search results.Continue reading...

Enamored with Facebook's ascendance and eager to work for Mark Zuckerberg? Watch the new recruitment video above (or work at Google for a FB counteroffer).

Want to find out the latest Facebook trends, and what Coca-Cola, FIFA, Tesco and others are up to on the social network? Click through.Continue reading...

Apple heralds the Beatles' arrival in iTunes with new commercials, while fans geek out over iOS 4.2 arrival and Apple TV 4.1.

B&N taps Sarah Jessica Parker to tout the NookColor.

Blockbuster to launch a major we're-not-dead-yet ad campaign.

Google pushing Chrome so hard it’s buying…print ads?

MTV bets on growing Middle East audience.

Netflix finally brings streaming-only plan to U.S.Continue reading...