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Apple sued over iBooks name

Apple has found itself in yet another court battle to fight over the use of a name it has given to one of its many online services. This time the dispute is over iBooks, the name of the downloadable book service that Apple launched over a year ago at the same time it launched its first iPad tablet device. AppleInsider reports that a lawsuit was filed on Wednesday by John T. Colby, the founder and publisher of Brick Tower Press and J. Boylston & Company, Publishers.

That company bought out the assets to the "ibooks" trademark from now defunct publisher Byron Preiss which released a number of book titles with that imprint for several years. The lawsuit claims that Apple's use of the iBooks name for its downloadable book library, "is likely to overwhelm the good will of plaintiffs’ ‘ibooks’ and ‘ipicturebooks’ marks and render them virtually worthless." During last week's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple revealed that there were 130 million downloads of ebooks via the iBook store for the iPad and iPhone.

Of course Apple is already being sued for the use of yet another name with the typical "i" branding. Last week iCloud Communications filed a lawsuit against Apple alleging that the name Apple choose for its streaming cloud-based music service, iCloud, could cause "customer confusion" for iCloud Communications, a VoIP-based company for businesses. iCloud Communications is seeking all the profits from Apple's use of the iCloud name for its service which has yet to officially launch.

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