When Apple announced the Apple Watch, safe to say many were a bit surprised as many had initially expected Apple to call it the iWatch given the company’s propensity to add the “i” in front of some of its products’ names. While we can’t be 100% sure as to why Apple chose the Apple Watch moniker, a reason could be that the iWatch name has already been trademarked in Europe.
The iWatch trademark is currently held by an Irish company called Probendi and according to a recent interview that RTE Radio had with the company’s CEO Daniele Di Salvo, it looks like the company will be using that trademark to launch a smartwatch of their own. The trademark at the moment is being used for health and safety communications software.
According to Di Salvo, “We have been contacted by some very important manufacturers in China about the possibility of manufacturing a smartwatch and selling them with the name iWatch. Discussions are still ongoing. We are good at software but hardware is definitely not our business but we are evaluating this request.”
The device in question is said to run on Android and will feature the usual features one might expect from a smartwatch. A report from Bloomberg has also suggested that Di Salvo is planning on pricing the device less than what Apple is asking for the Apple Watch. It will be interesting to see how well the watch does upon its release, especially given the hype and association the “iWatch” moniker has.
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