Name Awards

Palm Pre (announcement) – Is the Palm Tree next?

Now here is an interesting name for a product. Or are they playing with us? At the recent CES show Palm announced the new Pre… and it certainly was a pre-announcement. No prices. No confirmed services. No registered trademark filing on the name.

More interestingly, wait till you hear how many people with an accent (especially Asian) pronounce this one. You might think we are back to bush telegraph communications with the Palm Tree! But enough said, we have already played off that theme enough with the Treo…..  3 trees in a row.

At the same time, they announced their new operating system with the exciting name webOS. This might also be a temporary name. Three other companies have previously filed for trademarks on this name and for one reason or another never been granted the trademark. It might well still be judged generic today (and therefore not trademark protectable).

If you want to know more about the devices, Engadget have done their usual stellar job. But as for the names, I think things might still change before final release. Palm are well known for usually acquiring and protecting good names. After all, they picked a great company name back when common English words were still available, then spent a fortune getting out of the trademark mess over the name Palm Pilot that for years had belonged to a certain famous pen company.

Maybe I should wander down the street and chat to them. I could be wrong. It might be that one of the many tricks this new little technology entertainer can do is be very motion sensitive. Maybe the name was chosen so it can compete head to head with the Wii – and keep you entertained while waiting for the boss to join the meeting.

Pre vs Wii – let the peewee (piwi) games begin.

Tags: phone names, technology trademarks, telecom names