British network ITV responds to Apple iTV rumor, says it has ‘vigorously defended’ its IP before

This probably shouldn’t come as an immense surprise, but British television network ITV has responded to the rumor that Apple plans to rename the Apple TV as… iTV. Now, Apple’s no stranger to using names which might be already trademarked — when you’ll recall, Fujitsu used to own iPad and Cisco owned iPhone before Apple took care of all of that with its gigantic piles of money. Well, someone at ITV is outwardly not pleased to hear that iTV is probably the next Apple products, with a report within the Mirror this morning citing unnamed sources which described its executives as ” furious,” and hints that litigation just isn’t out of the area of possibility. Pocket Lint’s contacted an ITV spokesperson for a more official take on the matter, and ITV’s director of Communications, Mike Large, says that ITV has a ” strong brand” with a ” highly valued IP,” that ITV is a household name inside the UK, and that it has ” vigorously defended” its IP up to now. Obviously, assuming Apple does go ahead with the iTV name, it might probably always opt to call it something else inside the UK, and it’s also worth noting that ITV has been fighting to achieve the usa mark for the name since no less than 2006, and has to date did not achieve this. While ITV seems to have done a horny good job at dodging any direct questions on lawsuits, it’s pretty clear that the network wants to let everyone know from the outset that they’re not likely to ignore this one.

Source

This post is tagged: Apple, british, defended, its, network, vigorously