You are right that they did pay some royalties. My bad recollection.
My main disagreement with you is your assertion that Apple deliberately chose the name Macintosh to imply a quality relationship with the audio equipment company. That is simply not true. You are inferring from the name similarities something that is not there.
Apple already had an excellent reputation among the public and did not need to attach its products to any other manufacturer, especially a small niche market one. Quite frankly, not that many people were familiar with the name McIntosh when they bought audio equipment. It was priced out of the reach of most people in Apple's target market. It was the high-end niche seller in the audiophile market. It was certainly not a high awareness brand in the computer community. Most people would not make any connection at all with a company that was then selling CD players for $2000 and speakers for up to $36,000. If anything, Apple would not have wanted to associate its new computer with the most expensive audio equipment on the planet, especially after having experienced a PR nightmare with the Lisa's $9,995 price tag that was perceived by the public as being way too pricey (although way under priced compared to other business workstation grade computers with which it was intended to compete that were in the $15 and up range).
(Contrary to myth, the Mac was more than price competitive in its market. Apple priced the original 16bit 128K Mac at $2495, lower than an IBM PC with 2 8.25" floppies, no HD, 128K RAM, and green screen monitor was around $2999 in early 1984. The IBM AT, IBM's first 16 bit PC, was released 7 months after the Mac at $4000 to $6700, depending on configuration.)
Apple succeeded in gaining permission to use "Macintosh" from McIntosh Laboratories in mid 1983, prior to the 1984 release if the Apple Macintosh computer, so there could have been no penalties attached. Just three years later, in 1986, Apple acquired all rights to the name "Macintosh" as a Trademark in computer related products regardless of how it was pronounced, homophone or not, with ML's acquiescence. Apple was never infringing McIntosh Laboratories Trademarks.
Also from Jef Raskin, your horse's mouth:
"I named it for my favorite kind of eatin' apple, the succulent McIntosh (I changed the spelling of the name to avoid potential conflict with McIntosh, the audio equipment manufacturer)."
According to Raskin, Apple also paid Mackintosh Rainwear a licensing fee... which was probably totally unnecessary as there are many non-competing products in differing industries with identical trademarked names. Certainly no one would mistake a computer for a raincoat unless it is someone with a pathology such as "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat."
"Glen Cole asks if my attempt to avoid trademark conflict wiht McIntosh audio equipment by spelling the computer "Macintosh" were successful. He correctly remembers that it was not. Apple even had to pay the raincoat manufacturer for use of the name, I have no idea why. Glen also asks how I feel about the nickname "Mac" for the product. Fine, we used it from the very beginning."
By the way, you are aware that Jef Raskin left Apple in early 1982, at a time when Apple's products were NOT released with the project code name which is what "Macintosh" was, and way before any marketing decisions for the Macintosh would even start to be considered? It was Steve Jobs who decided to retain the working name as the product name.
Before Apple owned the rights to the name Macintosh completely, the total licensing cost to Apple from the various companies that were using some variation of Macintosh or Mac, was under $2 million. In addition to McIntosh Labs and Mackintosh Rainwear, Apple also had to pay a Philadelphia company, Management and Computer Services, Inc., for the use of the plural name "Macs." In the internal dispute between Jobs and Sculley about using the project code name of Macintosh for the final product, CEO John Sculley says:
. . . “Steve (Jobs) prevailed, but it ultimately cost us nearly $2 million in out-of-court settlements.”The other company appears to be Management and Computer Services Inc., a small Philadelphia software company.
In 1985, Apple settled a trademark infringement suit with MACS Inc. for an undisclosed sum, according to a Jan. 24 report from the Associated Press:
“Apple Computer Inc. will pay an undisclosed sum to Management and Computer Services Inc. to settle a trademark-infringement lawsuit, the companies said today. The software company sued Apple for using ‘Mac’ to describe items associated with its Macintosh personal computer. Management and Computer Services uses ‘Macs’ as a trademark.”
None of these were deliberate. It's just the normal course of events in a world of Trademarks and legal entanglements. It is also why most of the other computer makers and drug producers pay big bucks to come up with weird sounding names that can't be related to any other product.
For some strange reason MAC Cosmetics, MACK Trucks, and BigMac, have not sued or been sued by Apple for trademark infringing name usage.
Now, if you want to talk about Apple's use of the name iPhone infringing CISCO's iPhone, you might have a case.
Thanks for the detailed response. Always eager to learn. I have nothing against Apple technology and design but I am highly skeptical of Apple's questionable business ethics, e.g. entering into music business against the settlement agreement with Apple Corps, Cisco's IPhone infringement you mentioned or the way IMac was advertised ("millions of colors" when it was capable of only 250K) or how owners whose Macbooks had faulty logic boards were treated.
As of McIntosh audio equipment, it was considered "doctors and lawyers stereo" since 1950s a and one of the better known American brands worldwide due to no-nonsense design and good value for money. Their core products were reasonably priced, 1/4 to 1/2 of 1984 Mac sticker price.
Consumer brand perception today is way different from what it was in 1982. Today, Apple brand is #6 on the list and giants from 1982 are nowhere in sight.