Fujitsu Will Sue Apple for Using iPad as the Name of Its Tablet PC
Aha, the magical Apple Tablet PC isn’t available for sale yet but it’s earning itself already lawsuit from Fujitsu. The Japanese company lawyers are drawing up the legal papers in preparation for filing a trademark suit versus the Cupertino California company. Fujitsu is claiming first use of the term iPad and it has enough evidence to claim prior use of the iPad brand name. Apple iPad, as a brand name, can be a goner if this legal case prospers. Way back in 2002, the Fujitsu iPad multifunction device was sold in the United States. Here is a picture of the Fujitsu iPad.
Sample Photo of the Fujitsu iPad
It looks like a large mobile phone but it actually does more. It helps retail store employees verify product prices, check inventory stocks in real time and record sales closed. The Fujitsu iPad was pretty advanced for the year 2002. It is equipped with an Intel Processor and running on Windows CE. It has WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity and also supports Voice over IP telephony. Furthermore, just like the iPhone of now, the Fujitsu iPad sports touch screen display! This sophisticated mobile gadget was priced accordingly; Fujitsu was selling it for $2,000!
“It’s our understanding that the name is ours,” Masahiro Yamane, director of Fujitsu’s public relations division, said Thursday. He said Fujitsu is ready to fight Apple over its plan to sell iPad Tablet Computers this coming March 2010. Legal experts are still not sure whether the Fujitsu Company will win this suit because the US Patent and Trademark Office already listed Fujitsu’s trademark application for iPad as abandoned in early 2009. But the Japanese company is vehemently claiming it renewed its application last June of 2009. On July 2009, Apple used a proxy company to file worldwide rights to the iPad brand last year and has been reported to have filed motions to oppose Fujitsu’s application at the US Patent and Trademark office.
The iPad brand is not exclusive to Fujitsu, Siemens is using it already as a brand name for engines and motors and Canada-based Coconut Grove Pads has the rights to sell iPad padded bras!
In my humble opinion, the Tokyo-based technology company is raring to win a nice concession from Apple. The iPhone-maker just had a stellar year for 2009. It reported a net income of $4.725 billion from total revenues of $15.7 billion as of December 2009. Fujitsu shrewdly knows that the Apple iPad will sell millions of units primarily because of its very low price tag. I think it will be up to Steve Jobs to decide whether he will fight the Japanese in an all-out litigation or give them a few millions just to shut them up. The Apple iPad has potential sales of billions of dollars so it’s only best to avoid any legal entanglements that may prevent it from being sold starting this March.
If you are also as cunning as the Japanese, better go to the US Patent and Trademark office and file trademark claims on a bunch of possible alternative names for Apple’s iPad (read our past article on iPad Review, for more info about this Tablet PC). Trademark iTablet, iNotebook, iSlate, iSteve, iMate, iLove, iSmart, etc… You just never know, Apple might lose the iPad trademark case and it will be your turn to extort money from them too!
Comments
2 Comments/Reviews on “Fujitsu Will Sue Apple for Using iPad as the Name of Its Tablet PC”
Leave a Reply / Review of “Fujitsu Will Sue Apple for Using iPad as the Name of Its Tablet PC”
Admin's Notice to Readers: Please note that we do not allow comments that contain profanity, harsh personal attacks against the writer/s, contact numbers (cell phone, landline) or any form of advertisements. We will definitely remove them. Keep your comments courteous and intelligent even if they do not agree with some contents/claims we publish in this site. Thank you!
On the assumption that the name iPad was in fact abandoned, then Fujitsu is acting as a cyber squatter, like all those people who owned att.this and att.that.
I recall all these large cos complaining at the time about people who took ownership of their names and now some of them seem to behave similarly.
There is no defense of the indefensible here. And the little joke at the end drives home the real motives for such cases.