Apple Computer face further payout to Beatles' company

Apple Computer, maker of the iPod music player and online iTunes Music Store, is likely to be forced into a multimillion-pound payout to Apple Corporation, the Beatles' management company, to settle the latest instalment of a long-running trademark dispute.

Apple Computer, maker of the iPod music player and online iTunes Music Store, is likely to be forced into a multimillion-pound payout to Apple Corporation, the Beatles' management company, to settle the latest instalment of a long-running trademark dispute.

The dispute between the two companies began in 1976, soon after Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak. The Beatles' company, founded in 1968, sued and got an agreement that the computer company would not move into the "music" business.

But it erupted again in 1989 when Apple made computers able to process music. That dispute was settled out of court in 1991, with a $30m (£16m) payment to the Beatles' company and an agreement not to use the Apple trademark in any application "whose principal content is music".

But in October 2001 Apple Computer launched the iPod digital music player - and in April 2003 its iTunes Music Store, which allows people to buy songs over the internet.

Apple Corporation argued that this broke the 1991 agreement. Apple Computer countered that the agreement granted it exclusive rights to use the "Apple" name in relation to data transmission services, which would include the iTunes service.