New York might be called the Big Apple, and apples themselves might be beautiful creations of nature, but as far as Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs is concerned, Gotham has no business affixing depictions of the fruit to anything conceivably related to its products. Like, uh, organic cotton shopping bags, which carry the logo and are produced by the city's GreenNYC campaign in conjunction with grocer Whole Foods. Someone might buy one of those bags and expect it to be functionally equivalent to a MacBook Pro! Ditto for the bus shelters and hybrid taxis that carry the symbol - they look just like Apple products. So Apple and the city are slugging it out in trademark filings, Wired News reports today. Dig through Apple's filing and you'll find the company is specifically upset about the little angular leaf at the top of GreenNYC's logo. But also, Apple has convinced itself that its own mark is somehow synonymous with the entire city of New York, and it looks like maybe the Times is to blame for this delusion:

Wired: Apple to New York City: Bite Me