Apple’s new EarPods are a fantastic set of buds for the slim $29 asking price, and a great improvement over Apple’s previous earbuds – but not everyone is so thrilled with Apple’s latest listening device. TheNextWeb reports that Randolph Divisions, makers of a digital hearing aid called HearPod, are suing the company over the “EarPod” trademark.
An infringement lawsuit has already been filed against Apple in Hawaii District Court. The argument is that HearPod and EarPods simply sound too similar. Notably, the actual products do not look at all similar (comparison image above via CultofMac), and serve very different purposes – and Apple does own the “EarPod” trademark in the U.S. However, Randolph Divisions owns the domain names earpods.com and earpod.com.
It doesn’t sound like a very compelling case to me – looks like just another company trying to squeeze money out of Apple in the hopes that they’d rather settle than fight the matter in court. After all, you aren’t officially one of the “cool kids” unless you’re suing Apple, right? It’s just so “in” right now!
