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Gargaro's World: HVAC Company Sues Apple

By Kyle Gargaro
January 29, 2008

Lets face it; Apple Inc. is the evil empire. The New York Yankees have nothing on this company. They sell gadgets at obscenely high prices and then make us feel uncool if we don’t purchase them. The iPod, iPhone, iMac all fall under this category (I will leave conversation about the iDog for another day).

So I was very excited when I heard BlueAir - a Delaware company specializing in air purification which has a product called the airPOD - was suing Apple to get the maker of the iPod to stop creating waves about the airPOD name. Here we go: A small HVAC company sticking it to not just corporate America, but a company that embodies everything wrong with our society.

I read the story in The Apple Daily Times. I am not making that up, there is actually a publication named The Apple Daily Times. The only thing missing from this crew is the Kool-Aid. The article stated, “In the 4-page complaint, filed last week in an Illinois district court, BlueAir Inc. alleges that counsel for Apple have been making a big stink since last summer over its request for a trademark on term airPOD … Lawyers for the Cupertino-based gadget maker have reported asserted likely confusion of BlueAir’s airPOD mark with Apple’s iPod mark, threatening to file oppositions with the United States Trademark Office, and more recently ‘making threats of seeking attorney fees and more.’

“BlueAir charges that it’s Apple, rather than itself, which is therefore creating the actual controversy between the parties and causing harm by way of those threats of trademark infringement and unfair competition.”

Yes, it was technical jargon for “We are going to stick it to the Man!”

Then I clicked on this link: http://www.blueair.com/products/airpod.php and I noticed the airPod looks strangely familiar to a lot of music devices I see at the gym. And then it hit me, BlueAir ripped off Apple. I felt like I had seen the Pope sucker punch O.J. Simpson. You know it isn’t right, but you badly want it to be.

So it is back to the tall grass for me. That is where I shall sit until Apple finally gets what is coming to it.

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Kyle Gargaro is Editorial Director & Associate Publisher of The ACHR NEWS. He can be reached at 248-244-1720 or kylegargaro@achrnews.com. Gargaro has been with The ACHR NEWS since 2004, first as Legislation Editor, then Managing Editor, and now as Editorial Director & Associate Publisher. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism.

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