On Friday, Wired’s Listening Post blog reported that Apple has hit Podcast Ready with a nasty cease-and-desist letter:
Apple Computer has slapped Podcast Ready with a “cease and desist” letter, claiming that the terms “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder” infringe Apple’s trademarks, and that they cause confusion among consumers. The company has been cracking down on use of the word “pod” by all sorts of parties, even though its trademark is for the word “iPod.”
Podcast Ready CEO Russel Holliman said he’d consider dropping the name myPodder if he had to, but “Podcast Ready”? If that’s infringement, Apple is claiming that it owns the word “podcast.”
Podcast Ready is a Houston-based outfit that produces software that makes it very easy to find and download podcasts to assorted devices, from different computers.
This move by Apple seems a little heavy handed, to say the least.
The Chronicle‘s Dwight Silverman has been following this story on his TechBlog, and will surely be giving the local angle some nice coverage in the coming days.
