Slashdot Mirror
Fujitsu Readies Lawsuit Over "iPad" Name
gyrogeerloose writes "In an event eerily reminiscent of Cisco's suit over Apple's use of the 'iPhone' name, Japanese firm Fujitsu is consulting its attorneys in preparation for going to court over Apple's use of 'iPad' for its latest computing device. Quoted in a New York Times story, Masahiro Yamane, director of Fujitsu's public relations division, said 'It's our understanding that the name is ours.' Fujitsu's application to trademark the iPad name stalled because of an earlier filing by another company and the US Patent and Trademark Office listed Fujitsu's application as abandoned in early 2009, but the company revived its application in June. Apple, which has applied for an international trademark on 'iPad' through a proxy company, has filed a number of requests with the US Patent Office for more time to oppose Fujitsu's application."
There's nothing eerie about this situation. Can't people say "reminiscent" without prefacing it?
I hate to let you two know, but... well, that name is terrible. Then again iPod and Walkman didn't exactly sound great when they first came out either. WAIT! Maybe that is the secret of good marketing! A terrible name. Quickly to the iInventadrome!
?
Apple should call it "MacsiPad" instead to both avoid a lawsuit and appeal to female consumers.
and spin this as a terrible loss, which will unfortunately cause them to come up with a better name.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
As in stone tablets for all you FSM heretics that never went to Sunday school. However, even with a young earth, it should have entered the public domain by now.
Sorry about the mess.
I don't think I'm manly enough to appear in public with the iPad for Women. In fact, I might sue Apple for reminding me of my childhood trauma of being dragged into that particular aisle of the grocery store by my mother.
Why is iPad worse than Thinkpad? Or notepad.exe. Grow up people, pad is a perfectly fine and useful English word.
If you paid attention to the Twitter feed when the iPad was announced, the jokes were coming from a lot of hot and bothered women. This is one area where they let their hair down and get nasty.
How many times has dad told you that you mustn't drink and post on slashdot...?
Making fun of it involves telling people about it.
The number of people who wouldn't buy one because of the name is vanishingly small.
So benefits far outweigh costs.
From the article... Fujitsu, which applied for an iPad trademark in 2003
Intel also used to try to keep the lower case i as their own trademark (as is i386, i486, etc.) before Apple launched the iPod.
Apple doesn't own the legal or moral rights to the lower case i prefix, they weren't even the first to use it.
Ipad as a name is about as bad as it can get for apple, due to all the jokes and the SNL skit. Is itablet also trademarked?
It's actually a MAD TV Skit
I'm pretty sure that name is available.
Remember to maintain your supply of
Bullshit! MagTek has an IPAD product, and has filed the trademark in 2000 which was later granted and then extended several times. Even Fujitus was and is after the name for their product much longer than Apple.
knowing full well that Apple prefixes all their products with an i
Apple doesn't own "iX" and it shouldn't get any special treatment. If it wants a trademark then should apply for it like everyone else. In this case it's late to the game, in fact too late.
Ipad as a name is about as bad as it can get for apple, due to all the jokes and the SNL skit. Is itablet also trademarked?
It's actually a MAD TV Skit
...And a fine example of how dreadfully unfunny Mad TV was, too. Still, they get bonus points for the fact that Apple used the name.
Bow-ties are cool.
It also makes more sense for intel to use it considering their name beings with that letter.
I don't even want to know what the iBM is.
Okay, iPoop is coming out.
I can't believe you don't know what a Hasemalphaginnojinglanaporphomism is.
Another great reason not to use twitter!
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Pity the cows and chickens.
Supercow AL RESCATE!
Bow-ties are cool.
From Wired
It's interesting that in the Canadian Apple Stores, the sales assistants use the Fujitsu iPad http://solutions.us.fujitsu.com/downloads/retail/DS_IPAD.pdf if you wish to pay by credit card and have your receipt e-mailed to you (you don't need to line up at a cashier)
iScry
iPon
iBigger
iViddy
iDiddy
iWantOne
iCantBelieveItsNotActuallyUsefulForAnything
iDroppedItLikeTwoDaysAfterIBoughtIt
iThinkItLooksGreatOnMyCoffeeTable
iBoughtANewCoffeeTableJustForIt
If you'd read the story, you'd see there is a Fujitsu iPad, so sounds like they've got a chance.
The number of people who wouldn't buy one because of the name is vanishingly small.
If the product is good, that number will be zero. If the product is no good and fails, pundits will write for years about how the name killed it. Such is historical revisionism.
News at 11: Not everyone finds the same things funny.
Up next: Do different people prefer different colors?
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Story? Huh? You mean the summary right?
Ok ok, yeah, it looks like there is actually a Fujitsu iPad that is indeed close enough in function to be a conflict with the Apple tablet:
http://www.currentdirections.com/hardware/fujitsu/ipad100.html
Wonder how Apple managed to miss something that obvious?
I'm in California. The first thing I thought of was "Wow, it sounds just like iPod", the second thing I thought was that it reminded me of a pad of paper. Someone would have to say "maxi pad" or "sanitary napkin" before I thought of the feminine hygiene product first.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
You know, I am sure they will claim that the play is on the "iPod" name. However, I think that they are really going for the iPADD name (PADD as in Personal Access Data Display from Star Trek http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/PADD). They can't make it too obvious I guess because Paramount would sue them. But when I see a slate form factor machine like this I immediately think PADD.
Bullshit! MagTek has an IPAD product
Now look closer. The MagTek device in your link is a point-of-sale card swipe terminal, presumably sold mainly to the retail industry.
Now look at TFA. The Fujitsu iPad is a point-of-sale card-swipe terminal sold mainly to the retail industry.
The Apple iPad, meanwhile, is a consumer appliance, conspicuously lacking a card-swipe device and is not primarily targeted at the point-of-sale market.
Or, in other words, MagTek have Fujitsu banged to rights for infringing their trademark, whereas Apple have a strong argument that they're not operating in the same market.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Ipad as a name is about as bad as it can get for apple, due to all the jokes and the SNL skit. Is itablet also trademarked?
If you think about it, people said the same thing about the Wii, but the extra publicity only helped out Nintendo.
Just wondering... has it ever occurred to you that you might be a geek?
Twitter can be used as a sort of meta-aggregate. I can subscribe to the EFF, slashdot, techdirt, boing boing, michael geist, etc. and get all the headlines on one page, rather than navigating through several different websites. when something sounds interesting, I click it and go straight to the article. It is a time saver.
Back in my day, we had to use these rickety old things RSS Readers, and we liked it. Ah, how I miss 2008.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
http://www.currentdirections.com/hardware/fujitsu/ipad100.html ...What were you saying?
[note that I didn't find that link myself, someone else had already posted it several comments up from yours]