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Apple launches global 'iWatch' trademark blitz

So far: Turkey, Chile, Colombia, Taiwan, Mexico, Japan, Russia

Reports are popping up all over the intertubes about countries in which Apple has filed for a trademark on the term "iWatch".

As The Reg mused on Monday when we reported that Apple had filed for such a trademark in Japan after filing in Russia last month, it's possible that Apple is protecting "iWatch" merely as a defensive move aimed at companies that might want to ride Cupertino's "i" coattails. But the recent spate of trademark filings seem more likely to indicate that Tim Cook's "incredibly interesting" wrist-mounted thingamajig may very well be on its way, and that it will be eventually available to world+dog.

MacRumors brings word that Apple has filed for an "iWatch" trademark in Taiwan, Mexico, and Turkey; a tweet from one "Santiago Córdoba Q." adds Colombia to the list; and a commenter to a FayerWayer article notices that Chile has also been included in the trademark-fest.

Interestingly, a search for "iWatch" on the US Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS), turns up a mobile-phone related filing by OMG Electronics on August 14, 2012; a computer-related filing by Brightflash USA on June 5, 2013; a physical sensor–related filing by Smart Monitor Corp on February 15, 2013; a "Telemedicine/telehealth wrist monitor" filing by Senior HealthWatch on April 24, 2012; and a handful of others.

It seems that if Apple does, indeed, want to dub its oft-rumored wearable computing device the "iWatch", either its legal team has another task on it hands or it'll need to pull out its checkbook. ®

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