iPad Trademarks Tip Another Apple Tablet Name Possibility

What's in a name?  If you're the upcoming, much-anticipated Apple Tablet then your name is just another of the hotly-argued possibilities in the run up to the company's event next Wednesday.  At one point iSlate seemed most likely; then we heard iTablet, and now thanks to some fresh trademark digging the Apple iPad is another possibility.  Registrations for the iPad name took place in Canada back in July 2009, and since then similar trademarks have been filed in Europe, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia.

You might be wondering where the US trademark is, but that's actually held by Fujitsu; the company registered it for handheld computing prior to Apple's interest.  While that could present a legal problem should Apple decide to go with the iPad name, it's an issue they've already surmounted at least once before with the iPhone (the trademark for which was held by Cisco).

Bizarrely, one of the companies who have applied for the trademark – Apple's name is obviously nowhere to be found, and different firms are named on each registration, but this whole thing seems coincidental with the upcoming launch – has a name the initials of which (IP Application Development, LLC) spell out iPad.  Whether that's an odd in-joke or a strange coincidence is something we'll find out next week; SlashGear will be liveblogging the whole Apple event, so join us on Wednesday.

[via MacRumors]