Wednesday, May 18, 2011

eNews: BN Seeks Trademark for A “Simple Touch Reader” (And Moves 1 Million Nook Apps)

PublishersLunch

With Barnes & Noble's new ereader announcement set for 10:00 on Tuesday, May 24, CNet has researched some of the company’s recent trademark filings (which are made through Fission LLC) for clues. They filed to protect the phrase “the simple touch reader” at the end of March in the category of “portable electronic apparatus for reading”–which CNet logically says “we take as a strong indication that the upcoming Nook will be an affordable monochrome e-ink touch-screen model that operates similarly” to the Sony Reader. A more recent filing also seeks to protect MyNook, a web portal service “to remotely manage, administer and control electronic readers” and files, and on April 22, they filed to protect the slogan “If You Love Reading, This Is Your Tablet.”


As we linked in brief yesterday, Barnes & Noble announced that customers downloaded more than 1 million paid and free Nook apps in their new app store. The top five paid NOOK Apps are Angry Birds, Drawing Pad, Solitaire, Aces Jewel Hunt and Astraware Mahjong. Among the top free apps is Nook Word of the Day. When the company first announced the initiative last fall, they indicated they were launching their own app store (instead of tying in directly to the Android app market) to focus on “developing reading-centric applications” and presenting users with a “curated, organized commerce experience.”

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