Apple now controls TabletMac name
Apple has gained control of the trademark TabletMac from the previous owner, mod maker Axiotron, although it is not clear whether or not Apple plans to use the name for a tablet computer.
Axiotron sells a product which they call a Modbook, which is a MacBook that they have modified to operate like a tablet computer. The Modbook has been available in Great Britain for most of this year. The Modbook is marketed in conjunction with Computer Warehouse, according to a MacWorld article. Axiotron apparently first used the name in 2006 when they issued a press release about the Modbook product, which read in part, “A high-tech solution hardware manufacturing company, Axiotron, Inc. is the maker of the award-winning ModBookâ„¢, the one and only TabletMacâ„¢ solution.”
In an article on the MacRumors site, Arnold Kim theorizes how Apple might (or might not) use the name by TabletMac by saying, “Transfer of ownership may not mean Apple has plans on using the term. Apple may have simply contested the trademark due to the potential for confusion between “TabletMac” and their own trademarks. But now Apple could potentially release a product called the TabletMac, and given the overwhelming number of reports of an Apple-branded tablet device, it certainly raises that question.”
The Modbook may not be exactly what the press has been clamoring about, but it is at least a known real product, more than can be said with any certainty so far about the rumored Apple iTablet. The Modbook is a slate-style tablet system that enables users to draw, sketch and write directly on the screen via a built in Wacom tablet. Sales results for the Modbook are not known, but its form factor is very much more like a laptop than what the rumors are defining as a tablet from Apple, which has always been discussed as between 9 and 10 inches, measured diagonally. Regardless of naming rights and introduction priority, the Modbook is not considered to be a rival for the Apple iTablet.
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