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Apple, Startup Go To Trial Over 'Pod' Trademark
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "Apple is scheduled to go to trial with a startup to fight over a three-letter word: Pod. The trademark battle centers on independent entrepreneur Daniel Kokin, founder of startup Sector Labs, and his video projector in development called Video Pod. Apple had previously filed oppositions against Kokin's usage of 'Pod,' alleging that it would cause customers to confuse it with Apple's iPod products. ... Names that have come under fire include MyPodder, TightPod, PodShow, and even Podium. Sector Labs is the only company to go to trial with Apple over using the 'Pod' branding. Ana Christian, Kokin's lawyer, says the fight is about more than allowing small businesses to use 'Pod' in their product names. She noted a trend in the tech industry, in which large corporations have been attempting to assume ownership of ordinary words."
I say this with all due respect:
Fuck Steve Jobs.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Nothing new to see here.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
When you're aware of a trademark issue you have to defend it or you loose it. The trademark laws are setup so lawyers keep getting paid.
Yes, but Apple stole that from the iPaq, so they don't have a leg to stand on there.
They'll have a tough time proving that "pod" is a valid trademark when it's been a part of the English language for several centuries before the existance of anything remotely resembling a portable recorded music player. They'll also have a tough time arguing that "pod" is seen as equivalent to "iPod", regardless of the context. And lastly, they'll need to explain why if "pod" is a trademark they haven't gone after all those obviously infringing gardening suppliers with their seed pods, or the PODS moving equipment company, or the Pipeline Open Data Standard (code for managing oil and gas lines), or the gazillions of other uses of the word that they've failed to defend.
My guess is there's another reason for this suit, perhaps that the defendant refused to sell an invention of his to Apple.
I am officially gone from
Do they also get Phone, Tunes, Photo, Sight, Movie, Book, Life, Chat, DVD, Web, Work, and Pad?
I'll give them Mac, but what does that mean for Shakespeare's Macbeth? Or MacLisp? Or Emacs?
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
She noted a trend in the tech industry, in which large corporations have been attempting to assume ownership of ordinary words.
Um, hate to break it to you, Ms High Priced Layer, but that thing you're describing there is called "trademarks" and is a practice that can be found in many industries and is not exclusive to the tech industry nor large corporations.
I'm just sayin'.
In this case, I think it's justified. Using a media device called a Video Pod could indeed be confused with the Apple Trademark, which is the entire point of a trademark. Words such as Podium wouldn't be of course, but in this case, I would think it's warranted.
If Apple were to release some new gadget and call it "iDroid", you can bet Google would be all over their ass, and with good reason. Borrowing another's trademark with the intent to leverage another's success is a perfect example of trademark infringement.
Not really, Pod has been used in that fashion for a really long time. Or at least way longer than Apple has used the word as a part of its trademark.
There are limitations, and in this case Apple is in essence trying to claim ownership of an English word which has been in existence for hundreds of years. A VideoPod is quite simply a Pod for videos, or basically just a container for videos. Considering that the special thing for Apple is using generic terms and declaring them to be trademarked by virtue of attaching an i to the front, I don't think they have any right to pretend like they own the word "pod."
This is known as TLT (The Lawyer Tax). Lawyers, not having any technical competency nor skills, want a piece of the action^Wmoney from the high tech industry. So the lawyers devise rules, regulations, and guidelines, that force Apple to pursue any and all things that the lawyers feel necessary to, well, protect the lawyers. It's a vicious cycle, the lawyers feeding themselves lawyers. In the end it's the human consumer who loses.
That's a lot of money Apple has been throwing into making the public familiar with the "pod" brand,
But Apple has not developed a "pod" brand, they've developed an "iProduct" brand. There is the iPod, iMac, iPhone, iPad, iTouch, and iTunes. I'm certainly not familiar with any other of their brands that are called "productPod"
...Apple going after people using the word 'Phone', because it might be confused with their iPhone products?
Not to mention the following trademarked generic words: All, Cheer, Dial, Dove, Pert, Suave, Mustang, Focus, Fusion, Crossfire, Tabasco, Oracle, Dell, Windows, Vista, Outlook, Entourage, Office, Access, Logic, Aperture, Flash, Adobe, Apple...
As PART of their trademark. That's the part that's problematic right there. If they had tried to trademark pod, they would have lost(or at least, the other companies wouldn't have tried). Having a trademark apply to partial words is what makes it gaming the system.
Considering that the special thing for Apple is using generic terms and declaring them to be trademarked by virtue of attaching an i to the front, I don't think they have any right to pretend like they own the word "pod."
Especially when this was around long before Jobs even thought of getting into portable music devices.
I'm throwing away all my moderations to post this but no one said it: why would anyone want to call their device the Video Pod? Google Video Pod and all you get is iPod Video and Video Podcast references, how difficult would it be to knock all those links out of google?
Guy's wasting his money, even if he wins he loses because no one will ever be able to find his product online, and "Video Pod" is a horrible name for a video projector. He claims "it took us years to go from prototype to funded" and now he's wasting that funding on fighting Apple? If I was one of his investors I'd pull my funding immediately because he's wasting money.... unless he's doing all of this to get publicity and he's planning on backing out the last minute. I did that ten years ago, chose a similar name to a famous existing product and was sued. I even had a story that ended up on slashdot and sales shot through the roof.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
As an aside, I personally dislike those that use such words as "podcast" and "blogosphere" it is saddening that their use has become so prevalent among the young.
This is why there can be a Firebird database, and also a Firebird automobile. Same name, but nobody is going to confuse one for the other. Nobody is going to say "Man, I thought I was going to get a car but it turns out I have a database server instead."
While both products in this case are technology, that seems to be where the similarities end. The iPod is, of course, an MP3 player. The Video Pod looks like it is going to be a digital cinema projector. Not really that similar. Also, Apple's branding has been around the "i" thing. Their iPod is their only "Pod" thing so saying someone is trying to create confusion by calling a projector a "Video Pod" is a real stretch.
While anything can happen in court, I can't see Apple winning this if it is properly litigated. A trademark doesn't mean you own any and everything relating to the mark. It means companies can't try and use a mark or one like it to confuse people. this does not at all seem confusing.
First, problem with what you said is that it's not in the same market sector. It's a video projector not a media player.
Second, "pod" is an actual word. Just because they've slapped an i on the front of it doesn't mean they're allowed ownership over an entire word. Replace the word "Pod" with Plane, sandwich, whatever and it makes just as much nonsense.
Note the "Arbitrary marks" section of the entry specifically notes that ordinary words can be registered marks, if the use of the word is unrelated to its common meaning. I don't recall pod being used for media players/consumer electronics before Apple started using iPod, in which case there's a case for pod not being a descriptive or generic word in that space.
Stop fucking with small startups. Patents are founded as a - protection - for small startups against the big corporations. That is not however the case today (as a patent may cost several millions...). Patents today - limits - innovation for the small inventor, and brings big money for the big corporation, which is the opposite of the original intent with the founding patents.
compared to u.s., europe does indeed live in an utopia.
Not really. I live in Europe, and while I wouldn't want to visit the US because of their recent draconian limitations to civil rights, things have been going seriously downhill over here too.
Maybe I'll move to Sweden some day. They seem to be taking civil rights and freedom pretty seriously over there.
Well it's obvious it isn't an Apple product just by looking at it.
Not shiny, less than $1000, not portable enough to take in the Starbucks ...
And most importantly, doesn't start with a fucking letter *i* !