Apple is not new at playing bad.
What I like about Apple is their skill to surprise people, but when it comes to their aggressive legal behaviour with competitors, well… that’s definitely no longer the case.
News is that Apple recently sent a cease and desist letter to Procreate, claiming copyright trademark infringement cause by their product Podium. The claim is about the name which too closely resembles iPod and the product’s design which closely resembles Apple products design.
Here’s an excerpt of the letter, provided by TUAW:
The term POD has also been adopted and used extensively in the marketplace by consumers as an abbreviation to refer to Apple’s IPOD player. The IPOD and POD marks indicate to consumers that a broad range of products, including portable electronic devices, computer software, and related goods and services bearing those marks and marks similar thereto originate from or are sponsored or endorsed by Apple.
Now, about the similar design, the thing I can think of is the iMac. For the sake of comparison, here’s Podium:
Here’s the iMac:
How similar those two products really are ? And being so simple in design, are any of them copyrightable ?
Apparently, Apple’s letter also cites Procreate’s website being too similar to Apple’s. Here’s Procreate’s websiste, and here’s Podium’s website. Has apple copyrighted the white and light gray colors or what ?
My take is they just want third party gadget vendors to pay Apple tax on what they earn.
Procreate’s defense until now, is as simple as in “take a look at the dictionary“:
Podium (noun)
Etmyology: Latin
Date originally used: 1743 (a good 243 years before Apple was founded)
1: a low wall serving as a foundation or terrace wall: as a: one around the arena of an ancient amphitheater serving as a base for the tiers of seats b: the masonry under the stylobate of a temple
2: a dais especially for an orchestral conductor
Source: Merriam-Webster
As for me, I bought three Apple products until now. Do I feel bad about that ? Yes, somehow.
Without intending to nit-pick, I should point out that what Apple is claiming is trademark infringement, not copyright. That doesn’t make the cease-and-desist letter any less ridiculous. It would seem that the “i” portion is far more distinctive of “Apple-ness” than the “Pod” part – iPod, iPhone, iMac, iTunes, etc. And yet look at competitors (iPaq, iRiver, etc.) that have successfully used “i-Something” without diluting Apple’s trademark in the least. I haven’t done an extensive search, but my cursory glance through Google didn’t find any cases of Apple claiming trademark infringement against Hewlett-Packard (iPaq) or iRiver America, which would have been the far more obvious candidates for a trademark claim. Only time will tell if Apple can let this die in dignity, or continue to press the case in the hopes of using their resources and financial position to force Procreate into a settlement when they can no longer afford to defend the case.
Who uses “POD” as an abbreviation for “iPod”? Seriously. I don’t think a single-letter shortening constitutes as an abbreviation.
Apple is a bunch of
Here’s the easy way to get Apple to drop this. Tell them they’re behaving just like Microsoft.
@azalea: I’m not that sure they dislike Microsoft as much as they want people believe.