Randolph Divisions, the company behind the HearPod digital hearing aid, has sued Apple over trademark infringement.
The lawsuit, filed last week in the Hawaii District Court in Honolulu, revolves around the ‘HearPod’ trademark Randolph Divisions successfully registered back in late 2007. In the suit, Randolph Divisions alleges that Apple infringes on said trademark with its EarPods line of earbuds.
Originally introduced on September 12, 2012, Apple EarPods first shipped with the iPhone 5, featuring a remote control and microphone.
Personally, I fail to see how the headphones could be mistaken for a hearing aid, but I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll refrain from making any statements about the validity of Randolph Divisions’ claim.
For the record, Apple does own the US trademarks for ‘EarPods’ and ‘Apple EarPods’.
But, as The Domains pointed out when the new headphones were revealed, Apple failed to secure the domain names Earpods.com and Earpod.com for its new product in advance (and still doesn’t own them).
Coincidentally, the latter domain name is owned by Randolph Divisions and leads to the HearPod website.
In related news, HearPod offers a ‘iPod Protection Plan’.
Image credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
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