What's the difference between an iPod and an iPood? The iPood, a small spade used by Aussie campers to bury their shit, has a new name following an intervention by Apple lawyers. In a letter to the iPood makers, Apple's legal eagles said: "iPood is clearly similar to Apple's iPod, there being merely a single letter difference." That could have been worded better, don't you …
in fact it's worse...it's recockulous...
iPood is a fantastic name that makes me giggle. Good on the Aussies and shame on Apple for yet again spoiling a great idea...
We should all start thinking of better names than the pocket trowl...Dung Dumper is better but it's not a patch of iPood....*giggles*
.. the other way round. The iPood works - simple clean design (at least if you wash it after digging holes in the peat in remoter parts of Scotland). You don't need to hold it in an unusual way or get bits of insulating material to get it too work.
So, I rather think that the iPood manufacturers would want to distance themselves from the manufacturers of second rate badly designed equipment such as Apple.
I always thought that you register a trademark in a specific market (eg consumer electronics), which means that it can happily coexist with products with the same name in a different market (eg fecal waste management ;).
Based on that interpretation, I'd say that apple has no legal basis for demanding this name change, so most likely they shoveled a lot of money to this company to get them to change their name voluntary.
...and in this instance the name isn't even identical. Problems can only arise if passing off is alleged or the similarlity in the two names can be shown to cause confusion.
Maybe then, that is the point and this is an admission by Apple: their products are already associated with shit, and as such the iPood could create confusion by being another shit-related device?
Some users have reported a problem with the iFirst. This is purely the fault of the reader, not the producer of the iFirst. However, in the unlikely event that you are one of the few multiply-challenged and inferior people with problems with the iFirst, you can apply for a cheap piece of plastic to attach to the outside, ribbed for your pleasure. Normal RRP £39.99
Coming soon:
iSight
iGlasses
iSpy
iCycle
iCeberg
Should we takeover iWantOneOfThose?
I was involved in the startup of the Danish IP company Tpack - which specializes in the convergence of *T*elco and *PACK*et-based networks, hence the name. Initially the tpack.com domain name was owned by (if I remember correctly) a courier service in Texas, so we made do with the tpack.net domain (I see now that the .com domain has been acquired by my old company, though). So far so good - but after the first round of funding, and after the company had started to tour the trade shows etc. and the name was hence getting recognized by our target customers, our board and management was horrified when they found *this* on the interwebs - http://www.ortlieb.co.uk/product_info.php?pName=tpack-toilet-roll-holder.
do apple own the letter 'I'??
if I wanted to to sell t-shirts with 'i like to club seals to death, wipe my arse with the warm pelt, then grind up the cute little carcasses and wear their heads as a hat' written across them, would apple sue me? the statement is plenty more offensive and just as tenuous a link to apple products...
ipood - has a direct and obvious link to the tool and its use
ipod - well, whatever that is, is anyones guess....
big, bully boy apple...
Just because a company may one day move into another industry doesn't mean they get automatic rights to names across all industries. Just because Mitsubishi owns a trademark on the name "Triton" doesn't mean other companies can't use the name for non-vehicle use... Magellan make a GPS called Triton for example.
I do get sick of big companies using the threat of an expensive frivolous lawsuit to bully the little guys. Surely the blatant use of the civil courts in this way (even just waving about the threat of frivolous action) should be considered contempt of the country's court systems and open to criminal prosecution of the bullies and their lawyers by the state under the appropriate criminal laws dealing with such.
iPood a trowel, so free to call it what you want. You could call is a BigMac and there is bugger all McDF's called do about it.
AND
iPAQ...yes that invention by Compaq.
A tablet style pc made long, long before the iPAD, one letter difference.
Trouble they company got scared instead of checking with their lawyers.
I would of sent a lett like so.
Dear Apple Trolls, sorry laywers.
With depest respect, **** off.
Yours sincerly, iPood makers.
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