Apple has yet again sent in the lawyers – this seems to be a favourite tactic of theirs which is increasingly giving them a bad name (and I am a Mac fan!).

This time, Apple have gone after a company called Podcast Ready for their use of the word Podcast and myPodder (their product name).

Robert Scoble has suggested using the terms Audiocast and Videocast from now on and dumping the term podcast – however this doesn’t solve the problem for Podcast Ready (nor any potential problems Robert’s company PodTech nor my podcast/audiocast site PodLeaders might yet have). Apple have already gone after several companies for their use of Pod in product names.

Russel Shaw has a very in-depth analysis of this spat where he speculates that:

we have Apple, maker of the iPod, trying to get right with the Trademark office about achieving formal Trademark and related mark protections for iPod AND its sought-after IPODCAST applications.

Russel is probably close to the mark here – however, Apple’s over-vigilence is doing nothing but tarnishing their image.