“Xoom Corp., operator of a money- transfer website, sued Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for trademark infringement for naming its new tablet computer that went on sale today the Xoom,” Don Jeffrey and Hugo Miller report for Bloomberg. “Xoom Corp., based in San Francisco, said it has been offering its online service since 2003 and registered the trademark for the name in 2004, according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in San Francisco.”
“‘To confuse and mislead consumers, Motorola without authorization deliberately and unlawfully appropriated Xoom’s trade name and trademark rights,’ the closely held company said in the complaint,” Jeffrey and Miller report. “Motorola Mobility’s trademark application was rejected in December by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which said it was too similar to one owned by Zoom Telephonics Inc. in Boston, according to information on the office’s website.”
MacDailyNews Take: Motorola wasn’t content with trying to copy the iPad, they had to copy someone else’s product name, too. We’re half-surprised that the derivative bastages didn’t just try to call it iPad. The thing looks so much like an iPad, they should’ve called it “iPretend.” Apple ought to sue them back into the radio age for trade dress infringement, at the very least.
Jeffrey and Miller report, “The case is Xoom Corp. v. Motorola Trademark Holdings LLC, 11-0848, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Regardless, it’s a stupid name that only a xylophone player could love.