OmniPod?
Wonder if they'll take on medical technology like OmniPod (a tubeless insulin pump). That'd be a fun showdown to watch.
Apple in 873-page legal claim to word 'Pod'
Apple really, really, really wants exclusive rights to the word “Pod,” in names for tech products, the company has argued in an 873-page legal brief filed earlier this week. Steve Jobs & Co submitted the voluminous document in a dispute with Sector Labs, a startup that's developing a projector called the Video Pod, Wired.com …
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:24 GMT sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
Lawyers...
It is time I think to think of reasons why we have a legal system. I would have thought that the reason law exists is to protect the weak and persecuted, to ensure fair hearings and ensure wrong doers are prosecuted.
Idealistically I would think that a lawyer should strive to some sense of goodness and fairness.
If you are a true lawyer, please see this for what it is. A (very) dominant company trying to intimidate and step on so many others. To control language itself in quite a very real way.
I don't know who Apple's lawyers are but I am pretty sure they do not have conscience. If you happen to be one of them, I spit on you metaphorically. I have no respect for you. You give lawyers a bad name.
People like you make all of us out there come up with statements above. My own feeling is you should all be put out in a boat far to sea and said boat sunk.
You are indeed the lowest form of life. Mainly because you have a choice on how to wield your power and influence and you choose this.
FAIL.
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Monday 27th September 2010 13:38 GMT Stone Fox
the rules...
NEW REGULATIONS FOR THE HUNTING OF LAWERS
US Government Department of Fish and "WildLife"
Sec. 1200
1. Any person with a valid hunting license may harvest attorneys.
2. Taking of attorneys with traps or deadfalls
is permitted. The use of currency as bait is prohibited.
3. Killing of attorneys with a vehicle is prohibited.
If accidentally struck, remove dead
attorney to roadside and proceed to nearest car wash.
4. It is unlawful to chase, herd, or harvest attorneys
from a snow machine, helicopter, or aircraft.
5. It shall be unlawful to shout "whiplash",
"ambulance", or "free Perrier" for the purpose of trapping attorneys.
6. It shall be unlawful to hunt attorneys within
100 yards of BMW dealerships.
7. It shall be unlawful to hunt attorneys within
200 yards of courtrooms, law libraries, whorehouses,
health spas, gay bars, ambulances, or hospitals.
8. If an attorney is elected to government
office, it shall be a felony to hunt, "entrap", or
possess it.
9. Stuffed or mounted attorneys must have a
state health department inspection for rabies, and vermin.
10. It shall be illegal for a hunter to
disguise himself as a reporter, drug dealer, pimp,
female legal clerk, sheep, accident victim,
bookie, or tax accountant for the purpose of
hunting attorneys.
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Friday 24th September 2010 21:35 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Weapons pod
“What I'm hoping to do with this case is to really reach a lot broader of an audience and make it so entrepreneurs and small businesses can use the English language as they see fit in branding their products”
I'm sure an Armalite 15 would reach that goal far quicker than a doing the "case" song-and-dance.
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Monday 27th September 2010 12:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
They did.
If distributing music via the internet isn't an acknowledged form of publishing, I don't know what isn't! Ever here of Web Publishing? An accepted form of free press (unless you are a blogger who keeps scooping the supposed pro's) by mass media. That has to do with words and images but we also see videos and 'pod casts' as a form of publishing. Ergo, it should be acknowledged that distributing music (or video!) is also publishing.
BTW, I wonder when the term Pod-Cast will get its day in court?
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Monday 27th September 2010 13:19 GMT bobbles31
Only in this to the letter legal lawyer filled world...
would someone with a straight face try to draw a distinction between music publishing and iTunes. iTunes "Publishes" music on the Internet. Ergo, Apple used their company name to publish music. iTunes would not have taken off, Apple's iTunes was always going to take off.
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Friday 24th September 2010 22:38 GMT Gary F
100's of pod companies for apple to take a bite of
On the FIRST page of a Google search I found these businesses with "pod" in their name. They have NOTHING to do with the iPod or similar gadgets:
POD Food
The Pod Company
POD (Payable On Death, American metal band, 1992, still going)
Pod Exhibition Systems
The Pod Site
Hov Pod
Join The Pod
There must be 100's more, maybe 1000.
Apple - s*d off. Greedy corporate.
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:24 GMT Dr_Jim
Apple patents Oxford English dictionary????
I think Apple may be over-reaching a little on this!
There is prior usage of the term pod in the computer industry. Going back to 1984, HP had a calculator pod used to connect external devices. I reference http://oldcomputers.net/hp75.html for details on the HP75D.
There is also a usage in http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~glaser/documents/SSS%20terrascope.pdf
Here a 2inch by 4 inch pod is used.
Most appropriately, I believe Frederic Pohl, the famous SciFy writer, may (like Arthur Clarke with satellite TV) lay claim to conceiving the iPod. I quote "Each Heechee carries a microwave emitter in a storage pod between his or her legs. The pod is a trapezohedron shaped device and is also used for carrying equipment. The pods also explain why the seats on the ship have V-shaped indentations to accommodate the devices. " (This is from the Heechee page on Wikipedia) I think this one may go back to 1972 or earlier!
Mr Jobs may be dancing in a minefield with this idea!
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:24 GMT Kit-Fox
Prior Art anyone???
As I recall from my days play the battletech games, that there was a 'pod' in use at various VR locations across the world that you could sit in and gave you the immersed feeling of actually being inside the cockpit of a mech.
I recall they used the word pod in their name, perhaps the company that made them could remind apple that they werent the first to use the word pod in their products in the technology world & as such have no rights to stop anyone else from using it.
Or is that just too much common sense to expect from the legal profession??
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Monday 27th September 2010 12:17 GMT Mr Mark V Thomas
Re: VWE "Battletech Pods"
Virtual Worlds Entertainment used the term "pods" in their literature for their versions of Battletech & Red Planet Mars...
(Red Planet Mars was a racing game based on a colonised Mars, delevoped by bored miners, using "kitbashed" racers, & featured "Wierd Al" Yankovich in the introductory video, as a underground race organiser).
The Tesla 2 pod system was used at the only VWE arcade that I knew of (The Trocadero Centre in Central London), though they were considering upgrading to the Tesla 3 pod system before a series of floods took it out (as well as the Alien War attraction, & the rest of the basement)...
The most notable feature of the VWE arcade, apart from the leather sofas (it was finished out as a "Victorian Gentlemen's Club" style wise) was it had a functioning bar (for a while, the only one in the Trocadero)...
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:24 GMT Stephen W Harris
Other technical uses of pod
Escape pod, cargo pod, transporter pod (eg Space 1999), OMS Pod (Space Shuttle), POD (perl Plain Old Documentation).
Also been used to describe a workstation environment ("work pod").
If memory serves, Psion 3a datacables had a "pod" in the middle of them.
There's so much prior art that it probably took 873 pages to sufficiently define the usage Apple want to lock down so that existing usage from decades ago isn't relevant!
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:24 GMT uninventiveheart
Why stop there?
Why can't Apple trademark vowels why they're at it? Anything "e-" or "i-" anything could get Jobs money.
Seriously... anything less than three letters which can be combined into a larger word could let Apple sue them out of existance. (Consider the Spanish infinitive "poder" and all of it's conjugations.) Unless the USPTO has a top bureaucrat under the table of the Apple Board of Directors (use any visual image you like), this won't happen at all.
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Monday 27th September 2010 12:28 GMT kissingthecarpet
Not anything to do with copyright either
is it? Its about Trademarks! Not patents or copyrights or prior art. Even if Apple trademark every bleedin' word and character in existence, you'll only not be allowed to start a company or sell a product with the same or similar name. You can still use the fucking words in normal speech and writing. This sort of legal action is bad enough without confusing it with other bad legal actions.
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:24 GMT rahul
Censored by Jobs...
... So there I was, sitting in my bachelor p**, enjoying a juicy, shiny red a****. While I was grooving to my latest t****, along came my health-nut girlfriend, saying I should really be eating peas freshly split from the p**s. Just then, I received a p**** call from the boss at my w***place, who wanted to know why the video d** that he had asked for a client was not ready yet. I logged on to the w** and fired up my c*** client, but since my contact was not online, I sent an e-m*** instead. I got a reply while watching a m**** starring Bruce Willis on my t*, but when I clicked on the attachment i***, all I could see was a still p****graph. I double checked that there was no problem with my O*, and then I even checked the b****** disks, but no go. I then tried to take control of my office computer using r***** d******, and sy** my folders, but inspite of having it finish in real q**** t***, as well as using a t*x* ed**or to manually check the list of folders, I was not able to retrieve my wo**. After checking my ***endar, I realized there was no way I could finish up unless I used a t*** m******. I told my boss, who was wild, and booked my on a one way s***** back to b**tc**p.
(This document edited to omit possible and/or probable references to the following Apple (TM) products: iPad, Apple, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iWork, iDVD, iWeb, iChat, Apple Mail, iMovie, Apple TV, Icon Composer, iPhoto, iOS, Apple Backup, Apple Remote Desktop, iSync, QuickTime, TextEdit, iWork, iCal, TimeMachine, Safari and BootCamp. Other words and phrases may or may not belong to Apple Inc, now or in the future. Trademarks belong to original holders.).
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:25 GMT Jason Bloomberg
iOpening
I guess there's three advantages -
1) They may just win their case.
2) It scares others away from even thinking about using "Pod".
3) It's publicity anyway.
I'd love to see what's in the 873 page brief - Sounds like they were re-living the nightmare of school detention; write 100,000 words on alternative uses for a household brick. I wonder how much is "Lorem Ipsum", cut and pasted when they got bored :-)
At least it hopefully tied up lawyers when they could have been pursuing some hapless individuals over something largely inconsequential.
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Monday 27th September 2010 13:17 GMT Neill Mitchell
Worse still
They know the poor sodding company on the receiving end may go bust if they choose to fight to the end. Even if they have insurance, all their subsequent premiums are going to sky rocket. This is going to cost whoever covers them a bomb.
This is just another example of bully boy tactics from Apple. Shameful.
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:25 GMT Giles Jones
Well within their rights
Oh come on. Apple has the product iPod. People are sticking Pod on the end of product names to cash in.
If Microsoft can stop people using anything that sounds or looks like Windows, then Apple can surely do the same too for their trademarks.
Microsoft stopped a Linux distribution being called Lindows and that is a different word and a made up one at that.
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Monday 27th September 2010 10:30 GMT dervheid
Really?
And maybe glazing companies should sue Microstuffed for people confusing their shitty little product with REAL windows...
Or maybe publishers could sue Apple over the Macbook, based on your initial premise...
POD, it's a WORD. NO-ONE gets to 'own' words. Apart from corporate lawyers. They've pretty much come to define the word WANKERS...
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Monday 27th September 2010 12:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
FAIL
If you bothered to read the article instead of just blindly agreeing with your great leader you might have noticed the product Apple is going after is a video projector... hmm I can see how that would be so similar to the iPod, a handheld device to play music, so obviously the company are trying to cash in on Apple's success.
The issue with Lindows was that it actually was being made to copy Windows but in an open source way. It tried to look like Windows and run any program that Windows could, so essentially was a complete copy in exactly the same field with the name changed by 1 letter. If this company was selling an mp3 player that was made to look and function like an iPod but they called it an ePod then yes I would agree Apple would have a case but they don't!
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Monday 27th September 2010 16:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
@GJ
> Oh come on. Apple has the product iPod. People are sticking Pod on the end of product names to cash in.
'Pod' is just a word which Apple have popularised. In trademark terms it is a generic mark. Generic marks are not sufficiently distinctive to serve as trademarks. Thus, 'Pod' outside the context of portable music players is not a registered trademark of Apple, and in no way infringes upon their trademark.
IOW: Apple just don't have the right to the exclusive use of the word 'pod' no matter how much they don't like it.
> Microsoft stopped a Linux distribution being called Lindows and that is a different word and a made up one at that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._Lindows: "As early as 2002, a court rejected Microsoft's claims, stating that Microsoft had used the term "windows" to describe graphical user interfaces before the product, Windows, was ever released, and that the windowing technique had already been implemented by Xerox and Apple many years before. Microsoft kept seeking retrial, but in February 2004, a judge rejected two of Microsoft's central claims. The judge denied Microsoft's request for a preliminary injunction and raised "serious questions" about Microsoft's trademark. Microsoft feared that a court may define "Windows" as generic and result in the loss of its status as a trademark."
Not quite the same thing as estabishing that Lindows encroached on their trademark.
In the end Microsoft paid $20 million for the Lindows trademark and probably the only reason Lindows agreed was to make M$ fuck off and go away.
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:25 GMT James O'Brien
Sod off crApple
873 PAGES TO SHOW THEY DESERVE THE WORD??
Why is it that Apple think that they and they alone should be able to use the word 'POD' in their products? Im sorry but if this actually succeeds then it will set a whole new low for companies and pretty soon we will have to license words from said companies just to be able to say them when we talk. Ok yes I know thats probably going to far but this is just asinine. How much longer until the dictionary definition for 'Pod' is changed to mention that it is a word associated with Apple products?
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:26 GMT Tzael
Sci-fi the biggest victim
"Quick, get to the escape pods, the ship's going down!"
"Err sir, after that unfortunate court case with Mega-Apple-Corp we can't call them that anymore."
"Yeah yeah, just tell everyone to get to the inter-planetary survival and protection vehicles, we'll put a 'pod' through Apple's letterbox if we survive..."
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Other words too...
Does that mean that I can no longer wear a dirty mac? Or that we're not allowed to call Michael McIntyre a cunt because Steve Jobs was one first?
Or could it be that Apple shouldn't be allowed to use the word Apple in their name because it might confuse people wanting to buy an item of fruit?
Reminds me of the time BMW sent out threatening letters to businesses with the word Mini in their title. They did it because apparently they, BMW, claimed they had spent a long time building up customer good will and they didn't want these companies playing on and potentially damaging that good will. Which would be fine if you didn't consider the fact that BMW hadn't been using the name Mini for as long as most of those businesses. Likewise Apple, there are a lot of products with the name Pod in the title which have been around a lot longer than some over priced* music player. This makes as much sense as them protecting the words Pad, Tunes and Phone. Now please Mr. Jobs just fuck off and leave the English language alone.
* What an Apple product over priced. Shome mishtake shirley.
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:27 GMT heyrick
English, huh?
If this woman is so concerned about the ability to have companies use English words as they see fit, why can't she understand that it is highly unlikely to require an 873 page document to make this point. If their arguement can't be stated on a couple of sides of A4 (even in legalese), it's a bogus argument. I'm sure they're hoping few people will actually bother to read and query the document.
.
Now, excuse me while I throw a few logic chips to an old PIC stuffed inside a joss stick tube with a vibrating motor (got one from an old mobile phone) to cobble together a dead-simple <cough> vibrator , a high-tech (overkill, surely?) device I think I might call "the FuckPod". Oh yes... [ps: anybody else except Apple & subsidiaries is free to pilch this idea, provided they keep the name]
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:27 GMT Jonas Taylor
Just One Question....
Surely the legal system needs simplifying if companies are submitting 850+ pages in these sort of disputes? That's a lot of material, especially when common sense tells you that Apple is WAY over stepping the boundary here. Either the majority of it will be ignored or people will have to be paid to read it and we all know that legal professionals aren't cheap.
Big tech firms shouldn't be allowed to bully companies out of using standard dictionary words. I hope Apple gets put in their place but they've got little to lose here. If they lose then that's what they were expecting and they write off a bit in legal costs; if they win then they get access to a trademark the likes of which hasn't been seen since Microsoft managed to grab "Windows".
Again, do they really need 873 pages when any layman could tell you that they shouldn't be allowed the trademark?
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Monday 27th September 2010 16:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
It's different
The difference between MS Using the word 'Windows' for one of their products and Apple trying to prevent anyone using the word 'pod' is that 'Windows' is a specific name for a specific product. MS have not prevented anyone using the word 'Windows' to describe the things that go in your walls, they have only prevented people from 'passing off' ie: making an identical or substantially similar product with the same or similar name (Lindows, would be a good example). Apple, however, are trying to prevent anyone from using the word 'pod' for anything.
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Sunday 26th September 2010 00:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Military used it for ages!
Just look for "recce pod" (322,000 results), "ECM pod" (416,000 results), "weapon pod" (903,000 result). Should miltary buy now hardware from Apple? Oh well, probably some Talibans would get out from their hidings just to be hit by bombs with an apple engraved? That would be sooooo cooooool!
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Monday 27th September 2010 10:31 GMT Michael Shaw
Registered trademarks
Remember, its not copyright, its not patent law, its trademark law at issue here.
The issue is how wide is the trademark protection for i-pod, a trademark that is used and is recognised around the world as Apple's music player. i-pod itself probably deserves protection.
But the real question is this: if you see a product with pod in its name, how likly are you to think its an apple product from the i-pod family?
Part of the issue is the bredth of the section that electronic prodcuts are part of in trademark law, and partly apple's desire to maximise their freedom for future movement, expecially considering how badly burnt Apple got over the apple trademark. The last settlement when apple bought the apple trademark from the Apple music label is confidential, (and alas wasnt revealed when they filed their accounts this time) but is reputed to be have been many times the millions paid at the previous settlement.
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Monday 27th September 2010 10:34 GMT JaitcH
Where's the problem?
Any word in any dictionary on the date of a claim should fail automatically.
This would protect words like Exxon, Taligent, Enron easily whilst Jobs can have his iPod but not prevent anyone else incorporating the word 'pod' into their products.
The problem is unique to the American legal system and obviously requires updating.
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Monday 27th September 2010 12:32 GMT sleepy
disgraceful
It was an utter disgrace that the USA gave Microsoft exclusive use of "Windows", "Office", "Word" etc. all perfectly good and long established words we were previously allowed to use how we liked. Monkey see, monkey do, so you can't blame Apple for trying. After all, if there's a chance the courts will let you own part of the language, why not; it's capitalism.
Nevertheless, I hope they lose. Even better if MS lose "Word", "Office" and "Windows".
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Monday 27th September 2010 13:06 GMT Ray Simard
Thanks to @Greemble, and...
...I was just about to deliver a very swift kick to Mr. Jobs and all others guilty of this insanity, but my foot is sore and I cannot find a foot doctor since the Apple lawsuit forced them to change the name of their specialty.
(Thanks to Greemble for reminding me of that brilliant Groucho Marx letter to WB.)
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Monday 27th September 2010 13:31 GMT Cheshire Cat
They're not the first
IBM trademarked the number 400 (as in AS/400) and Intel tried extremely hard to get exclusive rights to the number 386.
Easyjet have a history of trying to own anything with 'Easy' in it, regardless of their current business. I think Apple want to own anything starting 'i'.
I think companies need to take a step back and ask if the product in question has any liklihood at all of being associated with their company, and if there is any clear evidence that the product is being implied to be created by their company. If the answer is no, then any competent judge should throw it out. However in the US the judgements normally go to them as has the most money to hire lawyers....
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Monday 27th September 2010 14:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
*pod*
If I recall this would put them on a collision course with another avid trademark protector, George Lucas, as I seem to recall the racing things were called pods, pod racing, and there are games, models, and I expect electronic toys of some sort base don them.
Now that would be a funny sight to see as I recon lucasarts has better trademark lawyers then Apple.
I remember George sinking "Battle Droids" (later called battle tech) as it used the word "droids" and he owned it. Of course battletech is one of the most sued board games about (robotech/macross people and Lucas both took a bite out of it.)
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Monday 27th September 2010 16:30 GMT Terry Ellis
So much hate in this discussion
Firstly to all the commenters stating this is an issue of copyright (OMG they trying to copyright the dictionary!!!) or 'patent' the word are clearly confused - this is an issue of trademark not of any other protected asset.
Second it is perfrectly acceptatble to have a trademark for a word that is already in the dictionary, provided that you can make a case for it (as a commenter above noted, it hasn't stopped 'Windows' being afforded protection).
Thirdly in order to enjoy the luxury of having a trademark it has to be defended else it might pass in to general language. That's why Google or Tivo are probably not happy that their trademarks have effectively become verbs - it then makes defense of your trademark much more difficult.
Finally the comparison with POD shoes is a non-issue. The trademark can only be rigourously defended against other marks that might be considered competitors or are in the same market. If POD shoes suddenly made some kind of shoe based MP3 controller, that would be interesting. A relevant example is also the Apple computer versus Apple records dispute - in that case there was considerable debate about whether their activities overlapped or could be confused.
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This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
