Apple gets lawyers in over 'pod' companies

Following Google's insistence that media outlets shouldn't be using the term 'Googling', Apple has become similarly protective over the word Pod - whether it relates to the iPod or not.

The Cupertino company has sent letters to at least two companies which include the word 'pod' in their product titles, asking them to "cease and desist" from using the term.

The two recipients of the letters are Mach5Products, which sells hardware including the disputed Profit Pod, a device for collecting data from vending machines, and TightPod, which manufactures laptop protecting covers.

Both have been warned they are infringing Apple's iPod trademark and asked to rename their products.

Sarah Wright, intellectual property solicitor at law firm Olswang, said Apple's decision to send a letter to Mach5Products is not unusual and they may not expect or intend to take the matter all the way to court. "It's common practice for big brand owners to send letters like this… If they don't police their brand properly and ensure that trade marks that are too similar to their brands don't get on the register, it makes it more difficult to enforce their rights against third parties," she said.

According to silicon.com's sister site ZDNet.com a letter from Apple's lawyers to Carolee and Dave Ellison, who run Mach5Products, read: "We believe there is confusing similarity between Apple's iPod mark and the Profit Pod mark.

"Both devices receive and transmit data and are used with computers, both are used in connection with video games, and both have other similar components. Moreover, it has not gone unnoticed that, like Apple's iPod device, the Profit Pod product is a small, flat, round corned rectangular device with a display screen."

Mach5Products also applied for a patent on the name in 2004, which Apple has opposed and requested the company abandon in its lawyers' letter.

Wright said that the decision to file for trademark may have been the catalyst for Apple's move. "Often people think they must get a trademark," she said. "Sometimes they're better off not getting one and acquiring rights through trading…and avoid getting into these kind of scrapes."

TightPod has also been instructed to abandon a trademark application it had filed for to cover the TightPod in relation to MP3 players, with Apple once again citing possible confusion with the iPod.

Terry Wilson, who makes and sells TightPods, has responded by offering to remove the reference to MP3 players or for Apple to pay half the cost of a rebrand to lose the word pod. Wilson is also considering going to court over the matter.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment. It's not the first time Jobs and co have come over all precious regarding their trademarks. A German company, Liquid Air Tab, was sued by Apple earlier this year when the Mac maker alleged that Liquid Air Tab's Spodradio product infringed on its iPod trademark.

ZDNet's David Berlind contributed to this report