
Another small businessperson who is being bullied by Apple’s lawyers for the use of the word “pod” in her trademark has come out of the woodwork. Meet 53 year-old self-employed Terry Wilson from New Jersey. After having success using a spare sock to store her mouse in a way that its wire didn’t get all tangled up with the other contents of her bag, she raided her dresser once again, found a vintage pair of spandex pants from the 80’s, and recycled them into an ingenious, incredibly lightweight and apparently snug protection sleeve for her notebook, calling it the TightPod and making them for resale. But not if Apple gets its way. After Apple, maker of iPods, found the trademark application in which Wilson mentions covering MP3 players as well, its lawyers sent a threatening letter that was nearly identical to the one that the same law firm sent to Dave and Carolee Ellison, owners of a family run business out of Florida that makes arcade games and a small accounting device called a Profit Pod. In the letter (full text) to Wilson, not only does Apple offer her what it says is a “reasonable opportunity” to phase out usage of the TightPod trademark, it notes that Apple has registered a trademark for the word POD in other parts of the world and plans to do so in the US.