Apple faces potential lawsuit with HTC over "touch" moniker

Apple has already faced legal hassles in the past over naming conventions. Earlier this year, when the company announced the iPhone, it resulted in a lawsuit from Cisco which owned the trademark to the term.

Now, Apple could potentially deal with a lawsuit from cell phone maker HTC after naming its latest music player the iPod touch, similar to the HTC Touch which was launched earlier this year by Taiwanese handset and PDA maker HTC. Upon hearing the name of the new iPod, HTC president and CEO Peter Chou pointed out that HTC has registered HTC Touch as a trademark worldwide but did not comment on whether or not it will take legal action against Apple.

The similarities between the Apple and HTC media player's name, media playback, touch screen, and Wi-Fi functions may be enough to warrant a trademark dispute. Nevertheless, Chou said that HTC feels proud to share the same vision as Apple over touch screen functions, hinting that the company may try to reach a mutual agreement with Apple rather than take legal action against the trademark infringement – just like Apple and Cisco reached an agreement over the rights to the iPhone trademark.