Apple might have taken control of the 'AirTag' trademark
What you need to know
- The "AirTag" trademark has been granted.
- It's now in the hands of what is thought to be an Apple dummy company.
- Apple AirTags could be announced soon.
Rumors of an Apple-branded Tile-like tracking have been circulating for months and just won't go away. Then yesterday references to "AirTags" were found in iOS 13.2. And now a trademark for "AirTag" has been found following some excellent MacRumors sleuthing.
According to their findings a Russian company filed a trademark application for "AirTag" in October 2018. The description filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sounds very similar to what we've been expecting Apple to announce for some time.
After some back-and-forth the application was approved in August of 2019. And on August 28th, the links to Apple started to appear.
But that wasn't the patent application's final resting place. Instead, a month later, it moved again. This time to a Delaware company thought to be a dummy outfit for – wait for it – Apple.
None of this ultimately confirms that Apple now holds the trademark for "AirTag" but it does show that someone does. And considering Apple's use of "AirTags" in iOS 13.2 it's highly unlikely that company isn't related to Apple in some way.
Given the lack of an October media event, and the fact iOS 13.2 references the new tracking accessory, we expect to see AirTags announced soon. Possibly even this week and we can't wait for it to hapepn. Stay tuned!
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Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.