Apple Sued Over iBooks Name

Another week, another Apple lawsuit. New York publisher John T. Colby is suing Apple over the use of the word “iBooks,” according to news first reported by Tuaw. In 1999, Bryon Preiss founded Visual Productions and Ibooks, Inc. The company began selling books at around the same time. In total, one thousand books were sold under the IBooks name. Unfortunately, Preiss later died in a car crash, shifting his assets to Colby, who acquired them during a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy proceeding in 2006. Apple debuted its iBooks app in 2010 with the arrival of the iPad. It later was made available for on the iPhone/iPod touch too. It is Apple's answer to Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's NOOK book reading apps. According to Colby, Apple’s use of the iBook name to sell books will “render his company’s use Ibooks and Ipicturebooks brand virtually worthless.” As such, he is seeking compensation. Colby noted that although Apple does own the “ibook” trademark, it wasn’t until the introduction of the iBook app that the company used the name to sell books. Before that, Apple used the name to sell iBook computers, the last of which was sold in 2006. We will keep you updated on this new lawsuit. What do you think? Leave your comments below.