The Null Device

eiPott ist kaput

The latest copycat product Apple have gotten pulled for trademark violations: a rectangular German eggcup named the eiPott (a German pun roughly translating as "egg-pot").
One has to give the makers of the eiPott points for cleverness at least; and given the obviously satirical nature of the item, Apple's complaint does seem petty. A bit like Warner Brothers' Russian subsidiary having Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double-Bass pulled.

There are 2 comments on "eiPott ist kaput":

Posted by: Greg Sun Aug 22 09:32:29 2010

How about that - I'd forgotten my high-school German and it never occurred to me that the German word for "egg" sounds like "i", so every time someone says "iPod", "iMac" or "iPhone" a German would hear it as "egg-something".

Posted by: ianw http://www.tblspn.net/ianw Tue Aug 24 07:29:42 2010

what's more, lots of their words end in 'ei' (in the same way lots of our words enf in 'y' - verbs made into nouns) eg. backerei (bakery), druckerei (printery).. which got me thinking they might (subconsciously at least, or poetically, perhaps) think of these things as akin to eggs, where particular doings are brought into being. I ran this past a friend or two and (no surprises here) they suggested I was barking up the wrong tree.