Mi iPad, Su iPad

by Daniel Davidson

For a company that has blissfully innovated technology in our world that we hold so dear to our hearts, Apple sure does lack innovation in naming of their products. Good thing that Apple is popular and has some deep pockets – we’re talking the kind of deep pockets that compare to Ed Harris‘s decent in The Abyss (1989). Using those deep pockets, Apple has managed to attain the trademark “iPad” from Fujitsu, and move to a 3-0 record in name bouts (their battles over the “Apple Inc.” and “iPhone” names coming before).

The iPad, Apple’s newly anticipated product, which seems to fall between their iPhone and iMac products, will allow the user to surf the web, listen to music, browse photos, and access iBooks, just to name a few functions. The name “iPad” was formerly held by the Japan-based company, Fujitsu, for a similar product used in retail stores. However, Fujitsu and Apple recently negotiated the assignment of Fujitsu’s interest in the “iPad” trademark to Apple for undisclosed terms, coming just before the release of Apple’s iPad on April 3, 2010. For the uninitiated, undisclosed terms roughly translates to big, giant settlement dollars!

Fujitsu filed the trademark application for the “iPad” trademark (serial no. 76497338) on March 7, 2003, but never received a registration for the mark from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and actually were under a Notice of Abandonment for the mark since April 21, 2009. If Fujitsu would have failed to file the proper paperwork to cure the Notice of Abandonment, Apple would likely have been able to use the “iPad” trademark without any fear of litigation from Fujitsu. What likely played out in a Fujitsu board meeting, however, was a plan to keep the “iPad” trademark application alive just long enough for Apple to make a business decision to buy the trademark rights, or be forced into litigation.

In any case, Apple now has the iPad trademark, Fujitsu’s pockets are speculatively fat and happy, and the American people will be able to touch the iPad tablet until they’ve worn off their fingerprints. Congratulations Apple and keep the “iAnythings” coming. Hey, I might just have to go and file a trademark application on that.