Apple fights off adult toy manufacturers

ENTERTAINMENT outfit Apple has set its legal hounds on a purveyor of 'adult toys'.

It is particularly miffed that the makers of the so-called "gPod" have worked out a way of 'plug and playing' into its ipod so that the device vibrates in time to the music.

The Mainichi Daily News says that Ichiro Kameda is the president of a two-man company in Osaka, Japan that plans to market the gPod and its sister product the Jii, has been stymied by legal rows.

Kameda is reported to have said that it is mostly to do with the product's beat generator which is a small device with three different, sound-activated motors. You can plug it in to iPods or mobile phones. It can also be programmed to operate only for certain voices.

The Japanese Patent Agency gave him the right to use the gizmo in August last year, and the trademark he chose for the product was approved two months later. Then the Apple brief showed up and told him he could not call it a gPod.

The Mainichi Daily News quotes Apple as being 'tight lipped' about the case, here. µ