Apple goes after adult iPod Accessory

Jason D. O’Grady from ZDNet’s Apple Core Blog posted a bit of interesting information this morning.  Apple is engaged in a bitter legal battle with the makers of the gPod, an “adult toy” accessory for the iPod.  Ichiro Kameda is the president of the two man company that markets the gPod, and filed a trademark for the “gPod” which was approved last year.

Jason seems to speculate that the lawsuit is somehow over what the device is (i.e. an “adult toy”) and even points out Kameda’ defense of the product as non sexual.

Kameda  – “Putting it simply, the fight is all over what I call our beat generator. There’s a small device with three different, sound-activated motors. It’s a revolutionary invention. You can plug it in to iPods or mobile phones. It can also be programmed to operate only for certain voices.”

Jason’s final paragraph reads as follows:

I wonder why is Apple targeting gPod, when OhMiBod and iBuzz have been around forever? iBuzz prominently markets its product as “the music activated iPod sex toy” and even has sexy parodies of Apple’s silhouette iPod ads on their site.

I want to take this opportunity to answer Jason’s question. This legal battle has nothing to do with what kind of product the companies are selling.  The lawsuit is over the term “Pod”.  That’s why they haven’t gone after the OhMiBod or the iBuzz…they don’t have “Pod” in their names.

Apple is getting a lot of bad press for trying to lay claim to the term “Pod”, and I can understand it to a certain degree. I can also understand Apple’s point of view.  If they don’t stake a claim on “Pod” then Creative could released a myPod or similarly named device that could “confuse” the market place.  Apple doesn’t want to lose the name of their product…of course, they should have nipped ths thing in the bud from the beginning if that’s what they wanted to do.  I think, at this point, it’s a little too late to run around threatening to sue everyone in sight.