"They don't think it's a threat. However, a trademark must be actively protected, or else it's lost forever. Since Apple is hugely dependent on its picture branding, they have no choice but to prosecute."
Nonsense. You only have to defend a trademark against things that actually have potential to infringe it. Not only does this logo clearly look nothing whatsoever like Apple's, but they're not using it to compete with anything Apple does. They have all the choice in the world to avoid frivolous legal action like this. The only place their choice appears to be lacking is in whether to act as complete dicks.