these are in separate industries, though. apple had to settle because they started apple music which tacitly operated in the exact same sector of the economy as a record label. just because two things have to do with computers doesn’t mean they’re both in the “computer field”.

for example, if apple had started selling pianos like yamaha in the mid 2000s instead of opening an in-house music label they’d still be in the “music field” but wouldn’t have had to settle with apple corps because there’s not a reasonable argument that consumers would confuse the two companies just based off the semantic “music” connection. same here. an AI startup isn’t at risk of violating the brand trademark of an open source monitoring project in basically any western legal framework. if the world worked the way you’re saying then a lot of brands wouldn’t exist due to being “in the same field”.

this startup likely will avoid trademark litigation based on that, despite the companies probably being in the same/similar classes. a judge isn’t going to do anything on these grounds.