Apple is being sued for not using the iWatch name | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/wearables ... me-1299292

It's actually quite interesting, because there's probably a portion of a case for Apple 'trading off' the name - paying Google or whoever to redirect people searching for 'iWatch' definitely would be trading off if the iWatch was an existing competing product - it would be like, I dunno, Porsche paying Google to redirect any search for to 'Ferrari' to their web site.

However there is no existing iWatch product, so I can't really see how the company owning the trademark can claim to have been 'injured' in any way. They can't have lost any money by people not buying their product if they're not selling one and the 'iWatch' trademark certainly wouldn't be worth near as much money without Apple having made a watch already and the iWatch name being associated with it, an association Apple is actually reinforcing with the redirect.

I'm not saying he boot should be on the other foot - what Apple did was definitely underhand. But I just don't see how the case can succeed if it can't show any reputaitional or financial damage from Apple's actions, and I really can't see on what grounds Probendi could claim actual damage.

Probendi presumably thought that by owning the iWatch name Apple would have to pay them a hefty sum to use it on licence or buy it off them outright.
It's almost like cyber-squatting but not really - speculatively registering i<inset object> names in the hope that Apple will bring something out and want the name for the product.
What Apple is doing is shifty in its own right but I wonder whether they actually needed to do it - would Googles results started pointing people at Apple after a while anyway even without Apple paying for the redirect?

Nobody other than Google knows. Despite being all 'do no evil/open source' about some stuff, they refuse to let anyone external to the company inspect their ranking algorithm.

So we've had patent trolls, now we have trademark trolls.