Like the old Mad Magazine’s Spy vs. Spy, we now have the latest version of Apple vs. Apple. 

According to Newsfactor, Apple Computer will meet the Beatles' Apple Corps in court this week in London, where a judge will decide if iTunes violates a 1991 agreement between the two companies that supposedly blocked the computer maker from selling music.

Apple Corps, which represents the Beatles' business interests and markets their post-1968 recordings, wants the computer firm to stop using the "Apple" trademark to sell recordings online and it requests unspecified damages. The maker of Macintosh personal computers and iPods says the agreement permits using the Apple name to sell online data transfers, which are what downloaded songs amount to.

The judge hearing the case, Justice Edward Mann, has admitted to being an iPod user (how about that!), but neither side has asked him to recuse himself on account of this.

For details on the earlier two lawsuits between the companies, dial into http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=1300046L6SBY.