The news that what's arguably the world's best known
company, Apple, is unable to continue selling what's arguably
the world's hottest product, IPad, under that name in China
will give IP lawyers the heebie-jeebies. Others will no doubt
experience a certain schadenfreude. If you've done a trade mark
clearance exercise, you'll know that even finding a name
that's available in South Africa can be tricky. Imagine trying
to do it worldwide, as many multinationals need to do from time to
time. All those translations, all those transliterations! And it
certainly doesn't help if you choose a rather weak and obvious
name like IPad, which is likely to be quite popular. When Apple
needs to prepare for a new launch it decides on a name and then
uses an agent (or special purpose vehicle) to buy up whatever
registrations it needs – it obviously doesn't want to go
in as Apple, with the 'Hi we're Apple, we'd like to buy
your trade mark registration, but please bear in mind we're
