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Local Tech Wire
MORRISVILLE, N.C. – , the world’s No. 4 PC maker, is being barred from using the name “smartbook” for one of its new laptops in Germany by a German court.
Lenovo unveiled the Skylight last month at the Consumer Electronics Show and dubbed it as a "smartbook."
The restraining order, which , was issued on behalf of Smartbook AG, a firm based in Cologne, Germany.
The ruling against Lenovo follows a similar order issued against Qualcomm last month. Qualcomm makes the chipset that enables laptops to transfer automatically between WiFi and cellular networks, thus the term “smartbook.”
A Lenovo spokesperson declined comment when contacted by PC World.
Qualcomm issued a statement on Jan. 29 in which it said it would fight the ruling.
“German laptop manufacturer, Smartbook AG, is engaged in an aggressive campaign to prevent the continued use of the term ‘smartbooks’ by journalists, manufacturers and consumers,” the company said.
“Qualcomm does not claim and has never claimed to own the term ‘smartbook’ which it believes is a descriptive and generic term. The term is used by a number of companies, consumers and industry commentators to describe a class of devices that combine attributes of smartphones and netbooks enabled by various technology companies, including but not limited to Qualcomm,” the firm added.
Netbook Choice reported the Qualcomm statement.
"Without approval by Smartbook AG, Lenovo must refrain from using the character sequence ‘Smartbook’ in all writing systems in association with mobile computers — such as laptops (notebooks) — as part of commercial correspondence in the Federal Republic of Germany," PC World said, quoting a Smartbook statement.
