

Will Apple hunt down German WePad tablet over the "Pad" trademark? - dujkan
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/will-apple-hunt-down-german-wepad-tablet-over-the-pad-trademark-20100415/
I bet they'll sue...
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Zak
On one hand, the name seems pretty obviously derived from iPad. On the other
hand, I'm writing this on a Thinkpad; people other than Apple have been using
"pad" in computer names for quite some time now.

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CWuestefeld
As I understand trademark law, the fact that something is an obvious
derivation isn't relevant (that would be a copyright issue). _Note: IANAL_

The purpose of trademark law is not to protect the _seller_ , but to protect
the _buyer_ by preventing confusion. If there's potential that a reasonable
buyer might see a "WePad" and think they're buying an Apple iPad product, then
this would constitute a trademark violation. But if we don't think that a
reasonable person would be misled, then there is no trademark violation.

EDIT: spelling

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ZeroGravitas
That was the original intention but (and IANAL) I read something recently that
said it had been extended so that if something damaged your brand, then you
got to say whether it was acceptable or not.

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CWuestefeld
I've never heard this, so I'd be interested to see a citation.

Even if true, I don't see how this could constitute damage to Apple's brand.
The fact that Apple's name is used to help understand what a competing product
is doesn't do any damage to the brand. It seems equivalent to putting on the
box "compare our product to an iPad".

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char
I hope not. Trademarking common words such as 'pad' is ridiculous. It's not
like they invented some awesome word, like 'cromulent' and don't want others
using it. Before we know it, they'll be going after MaxiPad, too.

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rkowalick
Your use of cromulent has embiggened us all.

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xtho
Apple should rather add what is currently missing from the iPad instead of
making fools out of themselves.

