Trademark

A clear glass storefront surrounded by a paneled façade. Rectangular recessed lighting units. Cantilevered shelves. Rectangular tables arranged in a line in the middle of the store parallel to the walls and extending from the storefront to the back of the store. Yep, that's an Apple Store alright. And that's the wording that Apple included in their trademark application for the Apple Store design, inarguably as much of an icon for Apple as the patented designs of their products. The trademark was granted last week by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Apple is looking to secure their trademark in the world of top-level domains, along with many other mobile giants like Sony, Samsung and HTC. There were a grand total of 1,930 applicants for new URL suffixes to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. For the next 60 days, the public has the right to comment on any of the applications and the deciding panels will take it under consideration before granting top-level domains. Of geographic note, Africa and Latin America are making their first applications to the organization.

Apple and Proview are duking it out in China over the iPad trademark, but stateside, a California judge recently tossed out the case.

Apple had to attend a court in China last night as it became embroiled in a battle over the rights to the iPad name in China.  Proview, a company which has already filed for bankruptcy claims that Apple does not own the trademark for the iPad in China. Proview has already caused disruption to the sale of the iPad in China and is looking to gain a complete ban.