Hold on tight, ’cause we’ve got another “iPhone Cisco patent”-like situation on our hands. If you remember, back in the days when the iPhone came to life, Cisco was the company with the trademark for the name, but eventually they settled with Apple and here we are, witnessing the great sales of that handset. Now, it seems that the iPad is the subject of a dispute between Fujitsu and Apple…
And if it were only for Fujitsu… turns out that there’s another company with a product dubbed IPAD, Mag-Tek, using the trademark for a PIN-entry keypad. Fujitsu has been disputing the iPad branding with Apple since September and the story is much older than we’d imagine. Apparently, Fujitsu applied for the “iPad” trademark back in 2003, with the name covering handheld devices. The results was a $2000 Windows CE portable gadget.
Now, during the following years, the application was in trouble, because of Mag-Tek, that had already registered IPAD for its product. Thus, Fujitsu’s application became “abandoned” in April 2009, but they demanded a re-opening of the process and it went on till September, when the iPad application was published, so others could go against it, if they had solid arguments.
Then, Apple came along, using the fake company IP Application Development to dispute the iPad brand. To sum it all up: Mag-Tek is the only company of the three selling its device with a legit trademark, while Fujitsu sells a device with a pending trademark application and Apple is getting ready to sell an iPad with no US trademark at all.
I guess that Fujitsu and Apple will settle before this goes to court, right?
[via Engadget]
