Whether Apple is actually building a car, or it’s just a controlled leak to show that the company has more planned after the Apple Watch, isn’t known yet. What is sure, though, is that Apple is now legally covered if it wants to slap its name and logo onto an automobile.
Using its regular law firm Baker & McKenzie in Zurich, Apple recently expanded its corporate description to not just include the current array of watches, smartphones, tablets and computers, but vehicles, too. And Apple’s lawyers aren’t taking any chances, either. Apple aircraft, anyone?
In terms of specifics, Apple is now covered as a maker of vehicles including “Apparatus for locomotion by land, air or water; electronic hardware components for motor vehicles, rail cars and locomotives, ships and aircraft; Anti-theft devices; Theft alarms for vehicles; Bicycles; Golf carts; Wheelchairs; Air pumps; Motorcycles; Aftermarket parts (after-market parts) and accessories for the aforesaid goods.”
This follow on from rumors that Apple has several hundred employees working on a not-so-top-secret project code-named “Titan” to build an Apple-branded electric vehicle to take on Telsa.
The “evidence” so far includes reports that Apple is poaching electric car battery makers from a number of companies prominent in this area, the number of car-related patents Apple holds in this area, and its surprising levels of car expertise based on people already working at the company.
In some ways, this is the first bit of tangible evidence that Apple really could be thinking along the lines of an electric vehicle. However, just as with the patents it holds, the websites it snaps up, and the trademarks it files, this could be (and, playing the odds, most likely is) a purely defensive move to stop anyone else coming along and making an Apple car of their own.
Either way, it’s pretty interesting.
Source: Apfelblog.ch
Thanks: Renato
