“If you want an idea of what’s next to come out of Apple Computer’s idea factory, you might want to look to Hong Kong. Or maybe Singapore. Or possibly even Europe,” Troy Wolverton writes for TheStreet.com. “But you don’t need an airline ticket. Instead, you can take a virtual trip on the Internet to the trademark offices of those countries and areas. Do a search for ‘Apple Computer’ and you’ll come up with all the phrases and images Apple has trademarked — or applied to trademark — in recent years.”
“For many of Apple’s recent products and services, such as the iPod shuffle and nano lines and the Aperture photo-editing program, the company had filed a related trademark in locales far from its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters months before they were launched,” Wolverton writes. “Of course, some of the trademarked images and phrases have yet to show up in actual Apple products — and some never may. But the trademarks and filings not yet assigned to an actual product give a potential glimpse into what the company has in development.”
Among the more interesting phrases Apple has sought to trademark of late:
• iPod Hi-Fi
• Numbers
• MacPro, Mac Pro
• Mobile Me
Older examples include:
• iWrite, Hong Kong, filed September 2003
• iPhone, Switzerland, filed April 2002
Wolverton writes, “Trademark law allows a company to bar others from using a name or graphic symbol for a particular product or service. International regulations allow a company to file for a trademark in one country and essentially transfer that protection to another country months later. Under those international rules, the second country has to treat a transferred trademark application as if it was filed there on the same date that it was filed in the first country. In practice it means that Apple could keep the potential name of a new product for the U.S. market under wraps there until it officially unveils the product.”
Full article here.
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iSense — as iSense predicting what will be next, is a seriouis waste of time..FIRST POST?
The article says that Apple “sought” these trademarks. Were they awared them I wonder?
How cool it would be to possess the iSense…wait…my iSenses are tingling!!!
How about a iStereo?
Who needs a frigging computer then?
iSense iFart Pro (sigh).
Time to create a secret company with a different name to file these trademarks with.
It’s also time for someone to file the name “iPod Killer” so we can bury that phrase once and for all!
iThink you are all iDiots.
i knew it.
iMac, Mac Pro..
the i is for the consumer level… (iWeb, iLife, iBook)
therefore they’ll just take the BOOK our of Mac Book Pro
It is (kinda) in line with Final Cut Pro, etc
Mac Pro could be the new name for the Power Mac when it goes Intel.
Inkfinger – Exactly what i was thinking. Looks like a pattern to me.
Hey, you kids. Stop flinging secrets around the globe. You’ll put an eye out.
Ink and Rain
You’re both about two weeks behind the power curve with your analysis. Please try to keep up.
MW: inside, or is that supposed to be iNside?
I wonder what Numbers could be?
how about.. iCangiveaF@$k
TimD: I’m thinking sheets that spread?