“On March 14, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office officially published Apple’s latest trademark activity for Thunderbolt,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“The notice was mailed out on February 22, 2011 with the publication date noted as March 13. Technically the trademark has been registered to Apple in order to get into the US Patent and Trademark Office’s Official Gazette,” Purcher reports. “But there could still be some fireworks until it’s officially a done deal.”
Purcher reports, “For the record, the Official Gazette provides anyone who believes they would be damaged by the registration of a published mark an opportunity to challenge the proposed registration. Once the trademark has been published in the Official Gazette, anyone who believes that the registering party’s use of the mark might damage him or her has 30 days in which to file an opposition to the registration.”
Read more, including the official publication from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in the full article here.
Related articles:
Intel: Optical Thunderbolt cables coming this year – March 13, 2012
Apple still working on Thunderbolt trademark – February 5, 2012
Apple patent application reveals work on optical transmitting cables – October 20, 2011
This should be fun to see unfold.
Now if only they could get accessory makers to ship anything (of quality) that works with it. LaCie doesn’t count in that respect.
Thunderbolt is like this expensive great big empty hangar that’s got nothing in it because not many people own private planes in which to park them. The cable costs $50 and the peripherals cost $500. The greatest dead end tech ever.
Sorry BLN, but you’re quite wrong on that.
He is wrong on everything, don’t you know?
Yeah, right, of course it is. Just like USB is. I’m sure you’re happy with your 5½” floppy drive and the ZIP drive hanging off the back of your beige Mac PowerPC tower.
BLN, you really are an imbecile.
My wife loves my 8″ floppy.
😂
LOOOOLLLL!!!!!!!
My wife is so hot she only ever sees my hard drive
Do you call it Bongo also? Or Longo?
I wish there were more peripherals, but my MacBook Air is a Thunderbolt peripheral to my iMac and it makes for awfully fast data transfer between the two.
Give it a rest BLN, we get it. You don’t actually use any of this insanely useful hardware and you have fat fingers.
SOP for all MDN readers: Ignore all posts by BLN (unless your time and sanity have no value to you).
Better check who owns the Thunderbolt trademark in China.
iDO
I think Zues owns it worldwide.
Geez, Zeus.
I don’t suppose the corporate successors to North American Aviation are planning to start up a production line for P-47s again. Although that would be incredibly cool.
-jcr
jcr-p-47’s were made by republic. their legacy company, fairchild made the a-10 thunderbolt 2. both were/are monsters. heavyweights duking in the lightweight division. seems apropos.
Developed by Intel. Apple provided technical collaboration and marketed Light Peak as Thunderbolt in early 2011. A year and one month later, the trademark is got 30 days still to go unless Intel opposes?
Could happen. But if so, I can not see Intel using the trademark either. Hoping Apple is awarded the trademark.
Anyone remember Sony “iLink”? It’s just Sony’s trademark name for FireWire. Wonder how popular the Thunderbolt name will remain in the next year. All Intel has to do is give it a ‘normal’ name that people can use w/o fear of trademark infringement. Maybe “ThunderWire”? 😀
I look forward to this interface becoming standard across the entire industry.
I’m eagerly awaiting the really cool names that will end up being on the PC versions like IEEE1865
The “plane hangar” analogy is true in a sense, but it is also very true when discussing things like FireWire, PCIe cards, etc. etc. How many PCIe cards did YOU buy to plug into your MacBook Pro. All of these high speed buses for external devices have relatively small and specialized user groups and the hangars will be largely empty – and always have been.
HOWEVER the real strong suit of Thunderbolt is simplified connectivity. Those of you who have Thunderbolt displays know what I’m talking about. My late 2011 11″ Air becomes a big screen computer with iSight, FireWire etc etc with a single cable. The era of being able to take a teeny tiny but powerful mobile machine between TB monitors at home and work with NO COMPROMISE in functionality, and head out on the road with the same machine is the big value of TB. Peripherals are for specialists.
Too much bandwidth is never a problem. Ever.
This tech is too expensive atm and will be for years. usb 4. 0 will come out before this thing is any cheaper and usb 4. 0 will be just as fast. Bln has a point and a cable costs 50 bucks and more aand moat people are fine with usb devices and are quite happy. Most people don’t even know a difference between a byte and a bit so they aren’t going to care about a tech that will get them faster transfer speeds over their external hard drive or what have you. It’s a cool idea but costs too much for something not too practical. I can see this. ring important for a very small portion of users. Like very very small. The o. Ly people who want this is nerds or cumulative on new tech or the very few that may benefit. Make it cheaper and I take back everything I said. Faster is always better but cost matters too.
This is more than mere transfer rates. This is the ultimate docking solution for laptops ESP Airs. With a single tiny connector to a TB monitor you have USB fw800 speakers icam Ethernet and a 27 in screen. What’s not to love? Price is less relevant to this segment as well. If they wanted cheap they’d buy plastic WinBlows machines.