Apple Sued Over Use of iCloud Name 394
tekgoblin writes "iCloud Communications is suing Apple for the use of the iCloud name which they have the rights to. According to the lawsuit: 'The goods and services with which Apple intends to use the “iCloud” mark are identical to or closely related to the goods and services that have been offered by iCloud Communications under the iCloud Marks since its formation in 2005. However, due to the worldwide media coverage given to and generated by Apple’s announcement of its “iCloud” services and the ensuing saturation advertising campaign pursued by Apple, the media and the general public have quickly come to associate the mark “iCloud” with Apple, rather than iCloud Communications.'"
Re:How did they not know? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course they did. Probably some junior intern in the Legal department did the search and reported his findings to his boss. That boss commissioned a legal secretary to find out what iCloud Communications is and draft a memo. Then he gave the memo to his boss. That boss sat in one or meetings with senior legal staff where one of the items on the agenda was iCloud Communications. Based on the memo, and perhaps a phone call or two to iCloud Communications, the senior legal staff figured that paying off (I mean, negotiating a settlement with) iCloud Communications would be cheaper than getting the rights up front and so decided to go ahead and start using the iCloud name.
After all, Steve wanted to use the iCloud name and it was their job to make it happen. Apple can, if necessary, throw a few hundred thousand at iCloud Communications. That's chicken feed in the whole iCloud thing.
Let me be clear: I'm not saying this is evil or anything like that. It's just how things work. Any settlement with iCloud Communications will be just a part (and a negligible part, at that) of the cost of doing iCloud business.
Re:Rotten Apple (Score:3, Interesting)
So I guess you're typing your message using Lynx browser running in a terminal? I guess not, so you're guilty of using a dumbed down computer interface. Real men use the command line, using a mouse you're avoiding learning a zillion keyboard shortcuts which requires skill.
Computers used to be reliable, simple to use and required very little technical skills. Microsoft and Intel ruined this with their lousy inferior designs (Amigas, Atari STs and Acorn Archimedes computers were much nicer to use).
So far from dumbing down computers, Apple and others are trying to get us back to where we were before Microsoft and the junk that is the PC architecture ruined computing. The fact that everyone seems to be investigating the use of ARM is a good thing as the ARM series of processors can be traced back to Acorn in the 80s so it is at least a decade newer in concept than x86.
Re:The fools... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just so you know, you do not have to file in order to receive a trademark.