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Battle Of The Pod People: Apple & Sector Labs Heading To Court Over Pod Trademark

from the pod-this dept

Fri, Sep 24th 2010 2:26pm — Mike Masnick

A few years back, we noted Apple's trademark overreach in trying to stop any electronic device with "pod" as part of its name. This is, of course, silly. However, most companies have ended up backing down. One is still fighting. Sector Labs, which is making a video projector called the Video Pod, is apparently ready and willing to go to court and fight Apple on this. As we pointed out back when Apple started going pod-crazy, it's worth remembering that it was Apple's lawyers who brought back the now popular moron in a hurry test in its trademark lawsuit against the Beatles' Apple Corp. They might find themselves on the other end of that test fairly soon.

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Filed Under: ipod, pod, trademark, video pod
Companies: apple, sector labs

10 Comments

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Rose M. Welch (profile), 24 Sep 2010 @ 1:28pm

Coffee Pods?
I wonder if they've gone after the coffee pod companies...
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Ron Rezendes (profile), 24 Sep 2010 @ 3:26pm

Hmmm...
Does the naturally occurring pea pod need a name change to avoid persecution, err prosecution by Apple?
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Richard Black, 24 Sep 2010 @ 3:58pm

Pod
Apple continues to steal Cisco's trademarks IPhone and IOS. So it way past time somebody fights back.
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TtfnJohn (profile), 24 Sep 2010 @ 4:44pm

I wonder what they'd do if I came out with a cat toy called an IPawed?
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abc gum, 24 Sep 2010 @ 6:41pm

The pod people may have something to say about this
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2010 @ 10:43am

Hold it! What about the escape pods on my battleship? What the hell am I supposed to do now? Rename every pod? Do you think my galactic empire is made of money?
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Sep 2010 @ 6:19am

Apple stole or conned every bit of tech that has ever come out of the company. The only time they didn't borrow from others was the original Apple Computer which was not a great machine. The only reason it did well at all was the geek factor and they gave away tons of them to schools. My kids were always happy to come home and use the PC we had. I programmed some Apple database stuff and it just crashed. Couldn't make any money from it because of its memory flaws. The PC took over the market simply because it worked. Duh. Apple tried to steal it but Gates was too smart for him and wound up with Apples code. 2 thieves.
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Joshy, 28 Sep 2010 @ 3:27pm

In Portland we are famous for our Food Carts When two or more are found on the same lot they are referred to as "Pod Parks" countdown to a lawsuit in 3....2....1.....
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kindasketchy, 28 Sep 2010 @ 5:01pm

MMMM, Pyro Pizza
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Bart Torvik, 12 Apr 2012 @ 10:53am

Apple won
Sector Labs lost at trial. Apple owns "pod," at least in this case. http://gillette-torvik.blogspot.com/2012/04/apple-owns-pod.html
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