Here’s an interesting one, according to PatentlyApple, Apple just filed for trademark on the word Places for specific use in Europe covering computer hardware, education, entertainment services and other realms of retail.
The news arrives as the European Trademarks and Designs Office yesterday published the filing under application number 009760141.
Places is primarily about online social networking services related to a social networking site and will assist in locating people using GPS on Apple’s mobile devices. Whether this will be coordinated with Apple’s iTunes social networking music service called Ping is unknown at this time.
Moe interestingly, in an update to their original article today, PatentlyApple noted that Apple has also filed an application allowing the use of trademark in China, too.
Update February 25, 2011: Apple has filed for the “Places” trademark in China this morning under the same International Classes as noted above under application 301840743.
… and photos nor geotagging are mentioned in the application.
It’s interesting to note that while Apple introduced “places” with iPhoto ’09 in relation to geotagging, there’s not one single mention of geotagging or even “photo” in the classes set to protect Apple’s new trademark. With the specific inclusion of “online social networking website” under protection of Class 045, I’d say that this version of “Places” may be another type of future service. Time will tell.
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