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Technology news and Jobs arrow Information Technology News arrow An Apple a day brings the Trademark Lawyers your way!
An Apple a day brings the Trademark Lawyers your way! PDF Print E-mail
Written by Stan Beer   
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
The past few months has seen Apple issue Cease & Desist letters to business applying for Trade Mark registration with names that contain the letters pod and ipod.

Securipod Ltd a new innovations company based in Watford is due to release its first product this summer under the brand name ‘biouno’ the world’s first biometric wallet to help combat Id theft and credit card fraud.  At the eleventh hour Apple opposed the trademark application for ‘Securipod’ (pronounced secur’e’pod) on the grounds that consumers could be confused, because ‘securipod’ includes the letters ‘pod’ and ‘ipod’ and a legal battle is now in progress.

Last week Securipod claimed to be amused to see the tables turned when Apples’ elaborate iPhone launch was marred by a trademark wrangle with Cisco who stakes a claim to the iPhone mark. 

According to Securipod, Apple seemed to contradict themselves when referring to the iPhone trademark by claiming that the word iPhone should be considered generic and therefore should be able to be used by both Apple and Cisco without confusion. This battle of the giants was referred to as ‘a silly tiff’ by spokesman for Apple, Steve Downing.

Meanwhile Securipod directors say they are bemused as to how a biometric wallet could be confused with an iPod mp3 player, but an Apple iPhone could not be confused with Cisco iPhone.

Securipod design and marketing manager Mark Watson described Apples behaviour as an attempt by Apple to write its own rules for trademarks. He also added the 'silly tiff' as referred to by Apple can cost businesses tens of thousands of pounds in legal fees to fight for the right to protect their names.{moscomment}

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Apple  Litigation  Stan Beer  iPod 

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