Apple, Startup Go To Trial Over 'Pod' Trademark 401
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."
What a typical waste (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how much money is wasted everyday by these useless unethical corporate bullshit lawsuits. Clearly, things are completely out of control when people waste money fighting over common usage of common words. Hey Mr. Jobs, are you proud about all the money you waste?
This is just lawyers making work for themselves (Score:2, Interesting)
A few years ago, beer companies in Canada were suing each other over thinks like putting photos of water droplets on their boxes, and using really common plain language terminology. Utterly pointless and all it did was buy BMWs for the lawyers on retainer.
The defendant should submit Invasion of the Body Snatchers as prior art.
The law is broken (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Open the pod bay doors (Score:5, Interesting)
Its also written into law that if you do not "rigorously defend" trademarks/service marks, they can be ruled in the public domain ..
You also to pass a reasonability test... first off PODS storage is *not* actually called or branded as such, they are an acronym for Portable On Demand Storage (a side business of Public Storage iirc).. secondly its not "pod" as a unique name, its about Pod as part of a name in context of consumer electronics devices..
Regardless of how long the video pod device has been in gestation or internally named as such, the fact of the matter is that Apple has spent billions promoting the iPod in that market, and as such any newcomer to market has to adapt.. not the other way around..
For case studies on Copyright/Trademark defense you should look up Kleenex, Xerox, Lexis-Nexis vs Toyota(Lexus), Infinity vs Nissan (Infinity branded cars) for some of the history (from both sides of the argument as well as "equal vs equal" battles in the case of the Infinity trademark.
Its *reasonable* to state that a consumer seeing a VideoPod in a consumer electronics store would assume it to be related to iPods in some way.. that same reasonable assumption cannot be said regarding Pipeline management, Moving supplies or seeds (though I think you are reaching very firmly into ludicrous land when you grabbed at that one)
its not again about seeing "any use of the generic syllable pod in a product name.. " but rather the appending of pod to a product name in such a way that it implies a relationship to iPod/etc
Your guess is very wrong, the defendant in this suit is coming out with a product 10 years after billions of advertising have been spent on ipod/ipad/etc and trying to ride coat tails.. and using this as "free advertising" for a product that has not made it to market despite 12 years of work on it.. remember naming is not like patents.. even if he had INTERNALLY named the product VideoPod years before apple filed its first use of the iPod trademark.. the fact that he was not in fact using it in any way and had not defended it means he loses it
Re:Open the pod bay doors (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think Apple will win this one, but it's probably not as clear cut as you make it out to be. Also, companies have to defend their trademark or they risk losing it. I'm surprised Apple's legal team has time for this considering that they've been suing or getting sued by several other companies in the last year or so.
Re:Will apple sue apple picking places with apple (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WIth all due repsect (Score:1, Interesting)
Set up your company abroad then. You are allowed to have multiple mailing and corporate addresses you know.
Re:What a typical waste (Score:2, Interesting)
Adding to the confusion here; Current TV has been using the term video pod for years now. While they have moved away from calling the short form documentaries that comprise most of their programming "pods" of late, their usage is closer to the "video pod" name that Sector Labs is using as well. Not to mention a quick search that shows the term videoPod typically refers to video content designed to play on portable, iPod like devices.
Given how many uses the term has already accrued, it seems that Sector Labs would be better off coming up with a more distinct name.
ironically (Score:3, Interesting)
america's stupidity and faults, do not make a justified case for letting people own GENERIC names for objects. its morondom.
Re:TLT (The Lawyer Tax) (Score:4, Interesting)
The lawyers are also in a position where they have the expectation of 'expert knowledge' in the area of law. So, when the lawyer recommends that they must pursue a lawsuit or the company risks losing the trademark, the company executives will generally follow their recommendation. It's not as if Steve Jobs is going to study up on the intricacies of every legal case that Apple is involved with and override his own legal department.
It may have happened when certain design decisions were being weighed up against the engineering ramifications (eg. the iPhone 4 antenna issue), but I doubt he'd risk his company's trademark(s) so Apple could feel a little bit more community loving.
Re:WIth all due repsect (Score:3, Interesting)
In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc. Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News, Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts. Lawyers and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure out how the pie gets divided. Neither profession provides any added value to product."
According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has 10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population. The U.S. has 200 lawyers and 700 accountants. This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack." Could Dick Butcher have been an efficiency expert?
-- Motor Trend, May 1983
Re:What a typical waste (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What a typical waste (Score:4, Interesting)
It's close enough, I suppose, to necessitate a court appearance over, but I don't think Apple deserves a patent as broad as that - especially since the Video Pod is not a music player.
Re:WIth all due repsect (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't blame the lawyers for doing the bidding of the biggest corporations.
When you've got a system that so biased in favor of the rich, they're just going to continue pressing their advantage until you're a serf with a MasterCard.
Whenever there's a regulatory law passed, there's over a billion dollars an hour spent trying to bend it to their advantage. The starting salary for any congressional staffer who's making the jump to lobbying is $750,000.
Re:What a typical waste (Score:3, Interesting)
Droid was licensed from LucasFilm for use with phones running AndroidOS. So not only do you exhibit a complete lack of knowledge of trademark law, as demonstrated in your post, but you also don't even understand that 'Droid' has it's own set of restrictions and would technically be a licensing violation if LucasFilm didn't get a kickback for allowing it's usage. But by all means, sperg out about Apple while Star Wars and Droid (2 of Slashdot's favorite things) play the same game.
Re:What a typical waste (Score:5, Interesting)
but Apple in particular has a practice of picking VERY generic names... like iPhone when somebody ELSE already had that name and Apple camped the trademark office on a technicality to even contest the name.
Better yet, how about Apple's blatant grab for the term "ping"... even Microsoft wasn't stupid enough to go for that big of a grab and chose "bing" instead.
But there can't be a firebird web browser... (Score:2, Interesting)
But there can't be a firebird web browser...
People STILL want to forget firebird (the database) being complete dicks over this, but I won't let them.