Two companies, one name - and Apple Computer is standing up to the Fab Four's record label. But will its case crumble in court? Brian Boyd reports on the tussle.

At the height of his post-Italia 90 World Cup fame, Paul Gascoigne sued a publisher over an unauthorised biography. His lawyer began his submission by saying: "Mr Gascoigne is a very well-known footballer." The judge hearing the case, Justice Harman, replied: "Rugby or Association?" Later, during evidence, he asked: "Isn't there an operetta called La Gazza Ladra?" Then he asked the footballer's lawyer: "Do you think Mr Gascoigne is more famous now than the Duke of Wellington was in 1815?"

Given judges' reputation for being somewhat out of touch with popular culture, there was much relief in the high court in London this month when Judge Martin Mann, who is hearing a case between The Beatles' record company, Apple Corps, and Apple Computer, the technology company co-founded by Steve Jobs, declared not only that he knew what an iPod digital music player was but also that he owned one.

Justice Mann was hearing an application by the computer company that a lawsuit being brought against it by Apple Corps should be heard in a US court. The judge rejected the argument, ruling that the case should be tried in England. A trial date will be set shortly.

It will be a high-profile, bitterly fought and intricate case, as the two have had legal squabbles before and the argument will centre on an interpretation of a previous agreement. It's all over the Apple name and the complicated definition of what the term "field of use" means.

The Beatles came up with the Apple name for their record and management company in 1968. Paul McCartney named the band's company Apple Corps (a bad pun on apple core). Records released on the label by The Beatles and other artists showed a full apple on the A-side and one sliced in half on the B-side. The band made their final live appearance on the roof of Apple's Savile Row headquarters, in London.

Jobs helped set up Apple Computer, whose Macintosh launched the personal-computer industry, in a California garage in 1977. He always denied that the company was named after his favourite band's record label, once saying that he chose the name so it would be in front of Atari, a rival firm, in the phone book.

George Harrison, the late Beatle, first spotted an advert for Apple Computer in 1980, while flicking through a magazine. He felt there was potential for a trademark conflict.

Although The Beatles broke up in 1970, Apple Corps is still very much in business, not least because the band still sell as many records today as they did when the company was first formed.

In November 1981, after much discussion, the two companies agreed to share their use of the Apple trademark. Apple Computer would use its name and logo only in the computer business; the record label would use it in the field of entertainment.

Back then it was a practical arrangement, ensuring consumers would never get confused. By the mid-1980s, however, Apple Computer began to develop models with sound capabilities, and in 1987 it sought to negotiate a new, less restrictive trademark agreement. The talks broke down, and in 1989 Apple Computer went on to develop the musical instrument digital interface (MIDI), a standard for connecting electronic instruments to computers, allowing users to create, record and edit music.

The Beatles asked it to withdraw its MIDI-enabled products. When Apple Computer refused The Beatles began court proceedings, saying the company had breached its 1981 agreement.

The 1989 court case limped on for two years until a new agreement was reached. Although details of the settlement are confidential, Apple Computer is believed to have paid Apple Corps $30 million (€25 million). The two companies also agreed on a "field of use" for the Apple mark: music for Apple Corps and computers for Jobs's company..

Then, two years ago, Apple Computer launched the iPod, its popular but controversial portable MP3 player. And last year it launched iTunes, a service that allows Mac users to download songs from the Internet for a fee. It sold two million songs in its first 16 days.

Apple Corps, which is now owned by McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, George's widow, claims that the iTunes website breaches the 1991 agreement. It wants to injunct iTunes and receive damages.

Apple Corps says: "The 1991 agreement was concerned with the future use of the name Apple and use of the companies' respective well-known logos of apples. Specifically, complaint is made over the use by Apple Computer of the word Apple and apple logos in conjunction with its new application for downloading pre-recorded music from the Internet."

Apple Computer says: "Over a decade ago Apple signed an agreement with Apple Corps, a business controlled by The Beatles and their heirs, which specified the rights each company would have to use the Apple trademark. Unfortunately, Apple and Apple Corps now have differing interpretations of this agreement and will need to ask a court to resolve this dispute."

A cheeky gesture by Apple Computer in its early days may come back to haunt it in the upcoming case. Some of the first Macintoshes played a tune when they started up. Well aware of Apple Corps' displeasure with it for using the Apple name in the first place, the computer company called the tune Sosumi - an equally bad pun on "so sue me". (By contrast, the tune that plays when Microsoft's Windows system starts up is Windows Logon Sound.)

The case will swing on how the judge interprets the 1991 agreement. The difficulty is that he will have to look back on a pact made at a time when nobody foresaw such things as iPods and iTunes. It may well all come down to semantics.

Apple Computer will likely argue that, yes, it did agree to keep its name away from the music business but that iPod and iTunes are more to do with entertainment than music. How these terms are defined will decide the matter.

In the hearing last week to decide which country the case would be heard in, Justice Mann noted, archly, of the 1991 agreement: "If their intention was to create obscurity and difficulty for lawyers to debate in future years, they have succeeded handsomely."

What's in a name? How the simplest things can spark a war of words.

Victoria Beckham threatened to take Peterborough United Football Club to court last year over its nickname, the Posh. When the club tried to register its 80-year-old tag, she responded that she is now the only person entitled to use it. Since the release of the first Spice Girls CD, in 1996, she claimed, she has been commonly referred to around the world as Posh or Posh Spice. Although she had not registered the nickname, she said it was a well-known trademark in musical performances, printed publications and other licensed goods. From Peterborough's point of view, perhaps, that's hardly anything to do with football, despite who she is married to (this week, anyway). Beckham later withdrew her objection.

Bill Wyman, the former Rolling Stone, once sent a solicitor's letter to an American music journalist who is also called Bill Wyman, instructing him to "cease and desist" from using the name unless he could prove it was his legal name and unless his articles in future carried a "prominent disclaimer". The journalist wrote back, saying that he had been born with the name Bill Wyman - and, in a coup de grâce, pointed out that the Rolling Stone had been born with the name William George Perks. He never got a reply.

Porsche, the car company, came under fire from residents of a Swiss village perturbed by the name of one of its models. The people of Carrera say their home has been around for centuries longer than the German manufacturer's sports cars. As one villager put it: "Porsche's use of that name constitutes a misappropriation of the goodwill and reputation developed by the villagers of Carrera - the village emits much less noise and pollution than Porsche Carrera."

To resolve a dispute between Domino's Pizza and Domino Sugar, a US court tried to find out whether people associated the name Domino with pizza or sugar. Astonishingly, people asked the question in pizza outlets replied "pizza". The judge hearing the case apparently gave up in exasperation, ruling that the two Dominos could co-exist.

Newspapers that allow the word Xerox to slip into lower case - as in "he xeroxed the document" - are likely to get a letter from Xerox Corporation lawyers saying: "Xerox, as a trademark name, is not a verb, so please cease and desist from using it as such." (Message to Xerox lawyers: our lower-case use of your trademark was illustrative, so spare yourself the price of a stamp.)

The company that makes Rollerblade in-line skates likes to write legal letters, too, especially if someone infringes its legal rights by writing, "He was rollerblading in the park," or other menacing statements. Associated Press, the US news agency, now tells its journalists that Rollerblade is a "trademark for a brand of in-line skates. Editors should always capitalise Rollerblade".

You're quite entitled to write anadin rather than Anadin, however, as the brand's creator never registered the name. Tragically, though, you cannot use "frisbee" to denote a plastic toy disc. It is trademarked and has to be Frisbee. Oddly, you can write fibreglass, as it's a generic term, but Fiberglas is a trademark.