Saturday, January 23, 2010

Company Possibly Linked to Apple Files for iPad Trademark in U.S.

The Jesus Tablet was first was first to report that Apple had filed for an extension to oppose the Fujitsu trademark for "iPad".  We now have discovered that Apple may be moving ahead anyway.

IP Application Development LLC, a company that has filed patents internationally for the "iPad" mark, has now filed an application to trademark “iPad” in the United States as well. The application is dated January 16, and appears to have been posted to the US Patent and Trademark Office website today.

The application was filed under Filing Basis 1(b) and 44(d).  According to the USPTO website, Filing Basis 1(b) refers to the "bona fide intention to use a mark in commerce" and 44(b) refers to the "claim of priority, based on an earlier-filed foreign application."  Looks like last week's international filings were not only geared toward protecting the mark abroad, but were aimed at giving their U.S. filing a boost under 44(b).

The trademark application covers hundreds of goods and services including:  computers, books, games, and telecommunications.  Interestingly, one service being applied for “enables users to program the scheduling of audio, video, text and other multimedia content, including music, concerts, videos, radio, television, news, sports, games, cultural events, and entertainment-related programs as they will be aired”.

If IP Application Development LLC is not an Apple dummy company, they have a lot of similar thoughts about how an "iPad" computer might be used.

The Jesus Tablet continues to be convinced the revolutionary Apple tablet will be called the iPad, especially with the "bona fide intention to use the mark" associated with this filing.  For the record, we like Apple Canvas too, but don't think it's in the cards; and we just aren't big fans of  iSlate/Slate, Tablet/iTablet, iBook and iNewt.

With the timing of this application so close to the big announcement (they almost snuck it in!), is there still room for doubt that it will be called iPad?  Could this be a last minute misdirection ploy by Apple?  Could another company be preemptively grabbing the name before Apple's announcement?  Let the commenting begin...

Here is the filing:





Posted by at 4:47 PM

6 comments:

  1. Hi Chaps,

    I'm a kindred. I totally get how iPad is the phonetic hotspot for Apple to choose. iSlate is a very, very odd trademark. Steve would never. iPod was unsettling in the ears of the many initially, not today, where it's gospel. Fine journalism, come 27th the future will be the past and I hope I won't be eating my hat.
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  2. I wonder... if Apple ends up calling it the iTablet, will you re-name your blog "The Moses Tablet"?
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  3. Personally, I think "iPad" is perhaps Apple trying to keep the name protected and unusable; there's just no way they would use it for their tablet Mac IMO. It's so ugly! (Let's hope I don't have to eat my hat on that one either!)

    The name MacBook would be perfectly fitting for the tablet form factor. It would allow this new device to finally replace the white $999 MacBook in the product lineup as the $900-$1000 Mac and end the era of that device as a traditional notebook. The way was cleared for this last year. The MacBook Pros would be the company's notebooks at $1200+. And although it is highly unlikely, I also believe the name "iBook" would be quite appropriate. On the other hand, both "-book" names might conjure up the idea that the device can fold somehow, which of course this tablet may not. Or … it may yet!

    Finally, subsidizing the tablet with an AT&T or Verizon contract would lower the price quite a bit. Putting it inside an "all you can eat" data plan like those just rolled out by Verizon and AT&T would be perfect, especially if I could roll my iPhone right into the same plan!
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  4. iSlate would be dangerous - soon there would be jokes about the "isLate" Tablet ;-)
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  5. Thanks for posting Retro!

    Kaliko, it's true they could be protecting iPad because they don't want others to use the name. However, if they didn't intend to use the name themselves, why list hundreds of product and service categories for everything under the sun? I'm no lawyer, but it seems really overreaching and would not hold up (however, it certainly still could slow anyone else down from using it).

    We are sticking with iPad, although we also like Canvas and Applet (which we've always thought works well - blend of Apple/Tablet, and it will really launch a revolution in apps).
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  6. Hey, the_follower! I like the sound of that too: "Applet"! But wouldn't some company like Sun own the name already and thus make it unusable? I tried to find out by looking at uspto.gov but I didn't find anything in the 5 minutes I tried. Nevertheless, "Applet" is cool.
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