Apple is famous for its products but the Mac maker is equally famous for its trademark issues. You might not have forgotten the company’s secret moves to acquire the iPad trademark and their eventual payment of $60 million. Now they are having trouble with ‘iPad Mini’.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has denied Apple’s application for a trademark on ‘iPad mini’. According to the USPTO, “The term “MINI” in the applied for mark is also descriptive of a feature of applicant’s product. Specifically, the attached evidence shows this wording means “something that is distinctively smaller than other members of its type or class”. It means that even a company as big as Apple can’t patent words.

And it appears like the USPTO is against the name ‘iPad’ as well, since the ‘i’ stands for internet, and therefore also descriptive. They are saying, “When a mark consists of this prefix coupled with a descriptive word or term for Internet-related goods and/or services, then the entire mark may be considered merely descriptive”. But iPad is a registered trademark of Apple in the US.

Now, if Apple plans to get ‘iPad Mini’ they can only do it by proving to the USPTO that the name is descriptive of the entire device and not a smaller iPad. But that might be difficult to do as, according to Apple, the iPad Mini is “Every inch an iPad”, only smaller.

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While having a reliable source inside Apple is a good way to learn about the company’s plans for the future, another simpler way is following their patent applications. According to an application published by the United States Patent & Trademark Office, Apple appears to have plans to add a surround sound audio system into MacBook-like devices, and this system might help them to make even thinner products.

To enable surround sound configurations, the system will include audio transducers along with multiple speakers. And from the looks of things, Apple is planning to improve audio quality while decreasing the sizes of speakers so that they fit into smaller and thinner form factors. When this detail is combined with the info about thinner keyboards, it’s safe to believe that the future Apple machines will be the thinnest ever.

So, how does this system work? The system includes a few speakers and an audio transducer below the device’s keyboard. The configuration would allow speakers on either side of the screen to handle high range frequencies, while mid-range frequencies will come out through the lower speakers and the audio transducer would handle the low-range. According to Apple, the transducer could provide low and mid-range frequencies.

“…the transducer may output both low and mid-range frequencies, essentially performing as a “subtweeter.” In such embodiments, the speaker may output not only bass range frequencies (e.g., about 20-500 Hz), but also mid-frequencies (e.g., about 500-1500 Hz or higher)… The audio transducer may be combined with other speakers in an electronic device such as a laptop, tablet or handheld computing device 10. For example, in one embodiment, two tweeters and one woofer may be combined with the audio transducer. The transducer may output the bass channel and, optionally, the middle ranges, while the tweeters handle high frequency outputs. The woofer may output its standard range of frequencies. Through the combination of the woofer and the audio transducer, more decibels per watt may be outputted, especially in bass frequencies”.

They are also saying that the transducer, which could be a gel speaker or surface transducer, can be placed inside a chair, keyboard, or a touch-based input device to provide tactile feedback for a better “home theater experience”.

So, what do you think about this?

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Oh The Nerve!

Apple appears to be deeply concerned about losing ownership of the iPad trademark in China and might be thinking about a Plan B. The company reportedly is eyeing the EPAD trademark which is currently being used by a Chinese vendor on their products.

As you already know, Apple has been busy for the past few months facing numerous lawsuits regarding their trademark names and patents. They are currently having a tough time with the legal battle against Proview over the iPad name. Earlier, Proview issued a press release which detailed about Apple’s spy games.

There is a big possibility that Apple might lose the name of their greatest device and appears to have started thinking about new names for it. According to a report on Computerworld, the tech giant has filed a complaint against EBox Digital Technology Product over their use of “EPAD”. EBox received a copy of the complaint, which was filed through China’s trademark office, last month.

EBox sells a line of laptop luggage cases under the EPAD name. Apple says that the brand name closely resembles their iPad, so EBox should give it up.

EBox, which applied for the EPAD trademark back in 2010, has this to say on the matter: “The iPad trademark is not Apple’s, so now they want to take ours. Apple has been a bully“. The company reportedly is not planning to use the name on any electronic devices.

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The claim says the term “app store” is generic and that Apple shouldn’t be allowed rights to its exclusive use. But I can’t help but wonder just how generic that name was before Apple started using the term.

“‘App store’ is a generic name that Apple should not be permitted to usurp for its exclusive use. Competitors should be free to use ‘app store’ to identify their own stores and the services offered in conjunction with those stores,” the claim reads. It continues to mention that while Apple was applying for the trademark in 2008, Steve Jobs was apparently quoted as saying “Amazon, Verizon and Vodafone have all announced that they are creating their own app stores for Android.”

If the store was called the Application store, we would have a problem. But it’s not.

To me, this seems as preposterous as asking Xerox to give up legal rights to their name after it essentially replaced the verb ‘to photocopy.’ “They all just want to xerox our company image for themselves,” the CEO of Xerox would say.  Google would face the same situation in respects to people “googling it.”

It’s like Coleman making thermoses or Royale filing claims for the right to sell kleenexes. Even if there were terms in the language like inline-skate beforehand, we never had a reason to use those terms before Nordica’s Rollerblade. And guess what we call those?

Android doesn’t seem to have a problem using their “Market” to sell applications. Microsoft’s Marketplace isn’t a far throw from that. But no matter what names they do go with, people are going to be calling them app stores because Apple beat them to the punch and coined a catchy label. That’s just how society works.

Besides, I can understand why Apple would want to hold on to the App store name. They seem to have a decent theme going with straightforward names for that sort of thing. You know, the App store. The Apple store.  Also a bit of a tidbit,  Apple’s Trademark was published for opposition on January 5, 2010.  If someone had an interest in the name, they would have had to file an opposition proceeding that publish date, Microsoft missed it, and now this.

The post Microsoft, get used to selling your apps in the Marketplace appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It seems that we hear about a new lawsuit every day and it’s getting more and more confusing by the minute. Apple is suing HTC for over 20 different software patents. Kodak is suing Samsung for something about image storage and movie previews.

With so many lawsuits being handed in every which direction, how can you keep track of it all? Well, the very kind folks at InformationIsBeautiful.net were kind enough to put together this “simple” infographic that culls together as much data as they could from the Guardian and New York Times.

You can see that Nokia has suits against both Hitachi and Sharp over LCD price fixing. Sony Ericsson is suing Kodak over the handling of digital images. And Microsoft is suing Motorola about email contact patents. Confused as ever? Yeah, me too.

And do you know who wins at the end of the day? It’s not the consumer. It’s not the tech titan. It’s the lawyers. Just like the whole legal kerfuffle over Google Books and the scanning of copyright material.

VIA: Gadget Review
SOURCE: Information is Beautiful

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