USPTO Rejects Apple's 'iPad mini' Trademark Filing

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected Apple's 'iPad mini' trademark filing. This is very strange considering Apple owns the 'iPad' trademark after having acquired it from Fujitsu in March 2010.

Documentation posted by Patent Apple reveals that the registration is refused because the applied for mark merely describes a feature or characteristic of the applicant's goods.

According to the USPTO examiner, the 'i' in iPad stands for 'Internet' and the term 'pad' refers to a 'pad computer' or 'internet pad device', terms used synonymously to refer to tablet computers. "Marketplace evidence shows that the term 'pad' would be perceived by consumers as descriptive of 'pad computers' with internet and interactive capability." Additionally, the term 'mini' is also found to be descriptive.


The examiner also refused Apple's web page specimen says that a "web page specimen is not acceptable to show trademark use as a display associated with the goods because it fails to include a picture or a sufficient textual description of the goods in sufficiently close proximity to the necessary ordering information/a weblink for ordering the goods, and thus, appears to be mere advertising material."

All of this appears to be a bit ridiculous; however, Apple will have six months to respond to the descriptiveness and specimen refusal.

[via Patently Apple]