Keeping with its tradition of naming each version of Mac OS with a feline name, Apple chose Lion for Mac OS X 10.7. Unfortunately the company may have to change that.
A similar problem occurred with Mac OS 10.2, which was to be named Puma. Ford was then selling a car bearing that name and had threatened Apple to bring the matter before a court. Apple had then called the OS just by its number.
This time, the owners of the Zatfisher zoo next to Słupsk, a town in Poland have brought a complaint against Apple before a court, as they already have a website and an application under development bearing the same name, symbol of that zoo which houses 45 lions, a world record.
The owners have obtained an injunction enforceable in the entire European Union (27 States, including important markets for Apple), preventing Apple from using the name "Lion" for the advertising of the new OS. The case will be examined in details in a few months but until then, Apple will not be able to refer to its new OS as "Lion", at least inside the European Union.
It nevertheless seems ridiculous that these zoo owners were able to demonstrate that Apple's branding of an OS could harm them. On a side note and quite amusingly, the owner of the zoo declared in an interview : "I am not anti-Apple, I have an iPod, but the earbuds are broken".
