Apple is now going legally aggressive towards businesses who are using the word ‘pod’ in product and company names.

The company sent a cease-and-desist order last week to Podcast Ready, which markets an application known as myPodder that lets users download podcasts directly to a portable music player.

It has to be enforced that the term ‘pod’ has been used by the public to refer to Apple’s music player only and it is under Apple’s trademark protection.

This is a nice debatable topic for all of us as, Apple is claiming the word ‘podcast’ as a registered trademark. Although originally derived from the word ‘iPod’, ‘podcast’ has now become a generic term to refer to user-generated online audio content.

Apple has already settled with designer Terry Wilson who had created the TightPod laptop bag. The product has now been renamed Tight Jacket.

Online version of New Oxford American Dictionary defines ‘podcast’ as “a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the internet for downloading to a personal audio player”.

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