Last year HP applied for a trademark on the term “PalmPad” and the world groaned a little bit at the thought that this was what the company would call its upcoming webOS tablet. Last week it started to look like HP hadn’t settled on a name, thanks to a trademark application for “HP TouchPad.” Now it looks like that was just the tip of the iceberg. PocketNow spotted a few more trademark applications, this time for HP Duopad, HP Touchslate, and HP Touchcanvas.”
If it looks like HP is just trying to keep us guessing… well, that’s possible. But PreCentral also noticed that in October the US Patent Office rejected the PalmPad trademark, which explains why HP is in the market for another name.
The funny thing is that the application was rejected because it was too close to existing trademarks… such as PALM. You know, the company that HP acquired largely so that it could snap up the webOS software and release a tablet under the HP and/or Palm name.