Oh
thank you Apple for leading the way that Sony lost. Remember
the Walkman®? The
product the US office originally wanted to call Sound Around,
until Mr. Morita (co-founder of Sony) stepped in and said no
it will be called the Walkman worldwide - because that was the
way to create a global brand.
Like
the name Walkman before it, the name iPod does not describe
the product. Unlike the MP3 players from Sony, Phillips, Dell,
Creative Tech and many others, it does not describe what the
product does. And hence it is not a long name, nor are they
locked in to some specific descriptor as the technology evolves.
Interestingly
enough, Apple first acquired the rights to the name iPod for
an internet kiosk product, and still have that registered trademark,
in addition to the one for the music players we all know sells
millions a month now.
And
since Apple so clearly owns the iPod trademark for electronic
music devices, they go one step forward and name the various
models of the family with interesting names like iPod Nano and
iPod Shuffle. In short, since they own iPod in this category,
they can put whatever they like after it, and don't even bother
to register those trademarks.
Incidentally,
Apple does not own the name iPod across all trademark categories,
though soon it might pass into super brand status. What then
will happen to the existing iPod trademarks for medical equipment
(pulse oximeters) and financial software and services?
As
for the iPod logo, we don't know what it looks like, but we
gave it a 10 anyway. When your product is such a powerful symbol
of your brand, who needs a product logo anyway?
For
more information on the iPod please see Apple.
