It took two months after Steve Jobs originally unveiled the iPad, and approximately a week before the tablet was available for purchase. This isn’t the first time Apple has struggled to come up with a name for a new device.
iPad is the name of the game
In 2000, Fujitsu released the iPAD, a handheld computing device incorporating Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, VoIP, and a 3.5-inch color touchscreen. Your iPAD was created by Fujitsu for store staff to track inventory and sales, not as a consumer gadget.
Ironically, Fujitsu had to fight for the iPAD brand towards the end of the standoff with Apple. It was used by another business, Mag-Tek, for a handheld digital encoder.
Both of these devices, however, had fallen out of favor by early 2009. Fujitsu’s trademark application was abandoned by the United States Patent and Trademark Office later that year. Fujitsu, on the other hand, moved promptly to re-register the trademark.
This comes at a time when Apple is busily acquiring iPad brands all around the globe. Result? Apple and Fujitsu are at odds over who is allowed to use the term “iPad” legally.
“We understand that the name is ours,” Masahiro Yamane, Fujitsu’s director of public relations, told reporters at the time.
The issue extends beyond the names both corporations have claimed, as it does with many trademark disputes. It also includes the capabilities of the aforementioned gadgets. Both (at least on paper!) have similar capabilities. This is a head-to-head battle between the two brands.
In the end, Apple paid an estimated $4 million for Fujitsu’s iPad trademark rights to be transferred. The iPad went on to become the best-selling tablet of all time, proving that Apple’s money spent on trademarking the term was well spent.
The naming of Apple products has a long and illustrious history
As previously said, this isn’t the first time Apple has had to come up with a name for one of their new products. Apple had a legal battle with Cisco, which owns the “iPhone” trademark, three years ago. The name has ultimately been agreed upon by the two companies. The two corporations also fought over the trademark “iOS,” which Cisco owned as well.
Apple, too, was in a similar scenario in 1982. They paid McIntosh Laboratory, an audio business, to use the name “Macintosh” for their developing computer.
