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by Aaron B. Thalwitzer

This was posted recently on a popular blog. It’s a tricycle vehicle called the Air Pod (see the awe-inspiring video here). Let’s just say it makes a Nissan Cube look manly. Cube jokes aside, could Apple ask for a better case to line ‘em up, take ‘em down on a cease-and-desist? Whether such a case would either serve to broaden or restrict the scope of its trademark rights is anyone’s guess; we’ll wait and see.

On a more serious note, this is a car that actually runs on compressed air. I, for one, am concerned that people everywhere would have universal access to inhalants of this magnitude. Duster is no laughing matter!

This isn’t the first time a company wanted to call something an “Air Pod.” In 2008, BlueAir Inc., a Delaware company specializing in air purification, sued Apple to get them to stop raising hay over the airPOD name. BlueAir used the airPOD name to market its desktop-based air filtration systems.

BlueAir’s attorneys argued, “There is no reasonable likelihood of confusion, mistake, or error in the marketplace for persons of even the lowest perceptive capabilities who are seeking an iPod music player considering or buying an airPOD desktop air cleaner instead.”

I asked someone with the “lowest perceptive capabilities” and it turns out BlueAir’s attorneys were right! Air purifiers are not iPods!

But wait, there’s more! In 2009, Air-Pod Ltd. named its drone helicopter the “Air-Pod.” Apple cease-and-desisted, and they’re still fighting it out.

On this most excellent Monday, check out the next stop on Apple’s litigaiton superhighway. First stop, a “Pod” video projector. Check out Wikipedia’s article for a not-so-brief history of other Apple litigation.