Another Buried Apple Trademark - 'iGuide' as Another Name or Service for iSlate?

Tuesday December 29, 2009 05:32 AM EST
Written by Arnold Kim

With the revelation that Apple had acquired the iSlate.com domain and iSlate trademarks, it seemed clear to us that iSlate was the likely name for Apple's upcoming tablet computer. While we agree with skeptics that these historic actions can't prove Apple's intent to follow through, we still think they are a very clear signal.

In order to confirm or deny the belief that Apple may have registered alternative options for their upcoming tablet, we did some extensive research looking for evidence for more of these hidden trademark and domain registrations. In the end, we were able to find one other trademark registration that was made on behalf of Apple through a company called iGuide Media, LLC.

iGuide Media, LLC. is another Delaware-based company whose sole purpose appears to be to obtain a trademark on behalf of Apple, Inc. In this case they have a single trademark application for the term "iGuide" that is currently pending. The application was first filed in December 2007. Again, we found Apple's Senior Trademark Specialist Regina Porter's signatures on the trademark documents linking iGuide Media, LLC to Apple, Inc. Meanwhile, the lawyer handling the paperwork for the iGuide trademark is the same lawyer who filed for the iPhone trademark under Ocean Telecom Services, also on behalf of Apple. Like iSlate, it seems clear that Apple created iGuide Media, LLC to obtain the iGuide trademark.

iGuide seems like it could be another possible name for Apple's upcoming tablet computer or a related software or service. In fact, the trademark classification for iGuide seems to be particularly telling. While most of these classifications seem to cover an overly broad range of possibilties, iGuide's paints a picture of an all-purpose media browser:

Computer hardware and computer software for accessing, browsing, searching, recording, organizing, storing, transmitting, receiving, manipulating, streaming, reproducing, playing, and reviewing audio, video, games, music, television, movies, photographs, and other multimedia content

Even more revealing was a later passage which describes downloadable electronic content of a wide variety:

Downloadable electronic publications in the nature of books, magazines, newsletters, journals, and blogs in the fields of entertainment, sports, science, history, culture, celebrities, news, current events, politics, technology, and education;

This description mirrors many of the recent rumors that Apple had approached magazines and newspapers to provide their content in a format for the upcoming tablet. iGuide, of course, could also describe a service or software application that might launch alongside the tablet itself.

So for those who weren't happy with iSlate as the possible name for the Apple Tablet, iGuide appears to be another option, though frankly, we still prefer iSlate. It might make more sense if iGuide were to be related service or software to the Apple tablet.