A trademark lawsuit brought against Apple in regards to its use of the term “iBooks” was dismissed today in federal court. Black Tower Press sued Apple in 2011, saying that it owned a trademark acquired in 2006 and 2007. The lawsuit also noted that Apple had a trademark for the term “iBook,” which describes one of the distinctive plastic laptop Mac computers sold between 1999 and 2006, but that the current term [Read More...]
Fitbug is a company that makes exercise accessories that work with iPhone apps. Fitbit is also a company that makes exercise accessories that work with iPhone apps. Their names are similar, and so are their products. It’s kind of like they’re the same company, except they’re totally not, and that’s the problem.
The confusion between the names of the two companies has really started to get under Fitbug’s skin, so it’s decided [Read More...]
They look so similar, right?
Randolph Divisions makes the HearPod, a digital hearing aid. The company has owned the “HearPod” trademark since 2007, and it recently filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple in Hawaii District Court. Apparently “HearPod” and “EarPods” sound too much alike.
Apple also owns a trademark for its EarPods, but it doesn’t own the earpods.com or earpod.com domain names—Randolph Divisions happens to own the latter.
The iPad mini is one of Apple’s biggest successes to date, but that doesn’t matter to the US Patent and Trademark Office, which has turned down Apple’s request for a trademark on the iPad mini because it is “merely descriptive.”
According to the BBC, the USPTO turned down Apple because the iPad mini name did not create a unique meaning.
The ruling, which was handed down in July, said the “applied-for [Read More...]
It’s a small world, after all.
Apple may lose its right to use the iPhone name in Brazil, according to a report on Reuters today. The trademark has been given to Gradiente Eletronica SA, a Brazilian electronics maker who registered the name in 1998, well before Apple had an iPhone to even trademark. The decision is set to be made public on the 13th of this month.
Apple got sued by the Swiss Federal Railway Service in October over use of their clock-face, and now another European railway has decided they want some money from Apple too.
Russian Railways has filed a trademark lawsuit against Apple for about $ 65,000 (2 million roubles). The reason behind the lawsuit isn’t really clear at this point, but it’s been speculated that Russian Railways is mad about people using their logo in the [Read More...]
Apple isn’t the only one who can use the Lightning trademark.
Apple’s new Lightning connector is the perfect accompaniment to the Thunderbolt port, but the trademark hasn’t always been owned by the Cupertino company. In fact, it had to “partially” acquire it from motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, which uses it to cover motorcycle parts, protective helmets, and turn signals.
Patently Apple discovered the Lightning trademark applications in the EU Patent & Trademark Office [Read More...]
After settling a longstanding trademark earlier this year over the name “iPad,” Apple has seen a big increase in iPad sales in China.
Proview, a Chinese company, had “iPad” registered years before Apple unveiled the iPad back in 2010. For the last few years the two companies have disagreed on settlement terms, but Apple finally resolved the issue by paying Proview $ 60 million to secure the name. Since the settlement [Read More...]
The United States Patent and Trademark Office just granted Apple its trademark for Passbook that was originally filed in June. After several months of internal processing on the USPTO’s end, Apple now owns the rights to Passbook and can leverage its trademark against infringing companies.
Passbook was first announced by Apple at WWDC 2012 in June and was touted as the company’s digital wallet technology. After being included in the iOS 6 betas, Passbook [Read More...]
The Music app on iPad.
Almost everything Apple creates is patented and trademarked in an effort to ensure that other companies can’t steal its ideas (though they do). However, sometimes the folks in Cupertino hit a stumbling block. That’s what happened when Apple attempted to trademark its Music app icon recently, only to find that Myspace got there first.
Apple introduced the Music app to iOS last year with iOS 5, splitting [Read More...]
