[Keelynet] trademarking your 'hybrid' made up of OTHERS technology

[Jerry Decker - KN]

Hola Folks!

This is a quite intriguing idea to protect a product.  In ipods case, 
they use many other assemblies to construct the iPod itself.

They trademark it as a system and technology 'hybrid' and don't have to 
worry or attempt to protect the actually hardware technology itself.

Quite brilliant!

http://www.core77.com/reactor/12.05_ipod_trademark.asp

12/04/05 - Trademarks, Not Patents: The real competitive advantage of 
the Apple iPod

Trademarks, unlike patents or copyrights, never expire if used properly. 
Registered design elements that serve as a brand foundation are 
therefore indefinite forms of competitive advantage. Value transference, 
in a nutshell, is the premeditated use of multiple intellectual property 
regimes at specific points across the product lifecycle, in order to 
realize sustainable differentiation.

So how does all of this apply to Apple and the iPod? A quick teardown of 
my iPod [Exhibit 1 above] reveals that most all of the guts of this 
product are made by others: Toshiba, Sony, Portal Player, Samsung, Texas 
Instruments, Wolfson Microlectronics, Cypress Semiconductor, Synaptics 
and othersa veritable who's who in the high tech hardware industry.

These suppliers keep their technology ahead of the performance and cost 
curves, and Apple benefits.

Apple integrates these discrete components (through software 
intelligence) and packages them in the clean white-and-chrome "bathtub."
--
              Jerry Decker - http://www.keelynet.com
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