• Does iPad Have An iP Problem

Fujitsu faces a trademark opposition from Apple over the iPad trademark. Apple's shell company IP Application Development , LLC has been filing for the iPad trademark en masse around the world.  However, Fujitsu filed an application for trademark registration in the United States in March 2002 and it doesn't appear as though Fujitsu which has been selling its own iPad since that time, is going to back down.  "It's our understanding that the name is ours," Fujitsu PR director Masahiro Yamane told the New York Times.  However, there is more to this story.

Fujitsu applied for the "iPad" mark, specifically covering handheld devices used in retail. However, another company called Mag-Tek had already registered IPAD for its line of PIN-entry keypads.  In April of 2009 Fujitsu's application was listed as "abandoned".  Upon realizing this Fujitsu asked the Trademark Office to re-open the application, arguing that Mag-Tek's IPAD was not similar to the Fujitsu iPad. The USPTO re-opened prosecution of the application.  In September, the Fujitsu iPad application was published for opposition.  At that time Apple filed its own "iPad" trademark application using "IP Application Development LLC."

At this point, Mag-Tek is selling the IPAD under a valid, registered trademark, Fujitsu is selling an iPad with a pending, but allowed, trademark application, and Apple has launched the iPad without a trademark registration.

Since Apple can't, at present, simply wrest "iPad" from Fujitsu, it will most likely have to resort to arguing that there is a likelihood of confusion between "iPad" and the ubiquitous "iPod" trademark.  Apple would want to continue prosecution of their "iPad" trademark arguing that the consuming public is not going to be confused in the face of the other iPad marks currently in use.  In the end, agreements and of course money will likely settle the issue.

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