New York publisher sues Apple over 'iBooks' trademark
updated 12:30 am EDT, Thu June 16, 2011
Formerly the name of line of traditional books
A lawsuit has been filed against Apple in U.S. District Court in the southern district of New York state charging infringement over the trademark for "iBooks," which publisher John T. Colby says was purchased by him from another publisher in 2006 and 2007, Bloomberg is reporting. The previous publisher, Byron Preiss, had put out more than 1,000 hardcover and paperback books under the "ibooks" name starting in late 1999.
While Apple has had the trademark on the term "iBook" for computers for over a decade, the company did not use the term as a designation for electronic books or an application for delivering electronic books until April 2010, Colby says. Apple's use of the term is "likely to overwhelm the good will of [the plaintiff's] 'ibooks' and 'ipicturebooks' marks and render them virtually worthless," the lawsuit says.
The case will be known as J.T. Colby & Co. vs. Apple Inc. and is filed as 11-cv-4060 in the Southern District Court of New York, which is located in Manhattan. [via Bloomberg]
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Joined: Aug 2002
iWars are wearing me down...
...at a certain point I start asking if Mr Obama couldn't figure out a clever end to all the intellectual property harvesting battles & reinvent the legal process for meaningful, collective & financially rewarding design & innovation...?