Clarification: Intel Owns Thunderbolt Trademark, Not Apple

Published on 05-20-2011 10:35 AM

The confusing non-confrontational custody battle over who owns Thunderbolt trademark between Apple, and Intel has reached a conclusion.

Rights to the trademark Thunderbolt, the new I/O technology co-developed by Intel and Apple, were originally filed by Apple. However, these rights are in the process of being transferred to Intel.

"As part of our collaboration with Apple, they did some of the initial trademark filings. Intel has full rights to the Thunderbolt trademark now and into the future. The Thunderbolt name will be used going forward on all platforms, irrespective of operating system."- Intel Senior Communications Manager Dave Salvator

Apple's help during the process of developing Thunderbolt/Lightpeak started in 2009 when they urged Intel to modify the optical nature of the Lightpeak technology to push 10 watts of power as well, thereby changing it from optical cable to copper based. It's odd that their contributions included these trademark filings as well.

Intel is still hard at work trying to implement the optical cable technology they originally planned for Thunderbolt/Lightpeak.

"The (Thunderbolt optical) cable could carry power in the same cable (running next to optical part of cable), but exact product plans are still to be announced."- Salvator

Please let them figure this out and implement it very soon. The original proposed transfer speeds of the optical version of Thunderbolt/Lightpeak were 100Gbps, 10 times faster than its current copper-based iteration. Say goodbye to all other I/O's if/when that happens.

Source: Bright Side of News

_{This article was originally published in forum thread:
Clarification: Intel Owns Thunderbolt Trademark, Not Apple
started by
Phillip Swanson} _{View original post}

7 Comments

coolguy742 - 05-20-2011, 10:38 AM

Yay it'll be like USB, anyone can use it!

Sent from my iPod touch using ModMyi
- Reply

Striknine - 05-20-2011, 11:00 AM

How long will this take to implement into all the devices we use? Probably 10 years or so. This will be a ways off until we are able to use it as we use USB.
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CrAzYiaN - 05-20-2011, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Striknine

How long will this take to implement into all the devices we use? Probably 10 years or so. This will be a ways off until we are able to use it as we use USB.

Thanks to hackers, it may be sooner then you think..
- Reply

Phillip Swanson - 05-20-2011, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by CrAzYiaN

Thanks to hackers, it may be sooner then you think..

Definitely. Also, the quicker Intel standardizes the platform the quick motherboard manufacturers will be to adapt the I/O. It helps that the largest chip-maker today is behind the tech. Kind of hard to say no to Intel as a pc manufacturer.
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Norb - 05-20-2011, 02:57 PM

Thank god, I'm all for Apple but that would just hinder the thunderport platform.
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iPittsburgh - 05-20-2011, 03:32 PM

It would be awesome to see thunderbolt as the universal standard in the next few years. I don't mind a couple minutes to sync my phone but if it can be done in a few seconds it would be nice.
- Reply

alexevo - 05-20-2011, 09:08 PM

Originally Posted by CrAzYiaN

Thanks to hackers, it may be sooner then you think..

What do hackers have to do with hardware implementation in mainstream computers?

+1 to this new technology. I thought it was only 10Gbits but 100?! damn!
- Reply

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