Meanwhile, Treo (pronounced with a long "e") communicators are combination personal digital assistants, text pager and cell phone devices by Handspring that aren't on the market yet. The Treo 180 communicator comes out early in 2002 and will sell for $399 in stores. The Treo 270, which comes with a full-color screen, arrives in the middle of next year and will cost $599. 
Both companies acknowledged each other's existence, but deny any bad blood. 
Trademark attorneys, however, don't rule out a future legal rumble. 
Under federal trademark law, one of the companies could make the case that consumers were "confused" by the name on the package and bought their competitor's product instead, said Glenn Spencer Bacal, a trademark attorney in Phoenix, Arizona. As for the accent marks and macrons the companies inserted to differentiate the products, in a courthouse that "won't carry a heck of a lot of weight because nobody is going to voice those accents in the marketplace," Bacal said. 
Bacal sees potential conflict: When a customer calls a Best Buy and asks if the store carries "Treos," how will the clerk respond? Will the clerk know which Treo the customer is referring to? 
Other attorneys echoed Bacal, who called Handspring's and e.Digital's decisions to sell products with the same name a "minefield." 
"The law says a trademark is considered an infringing trademark if there is a likelihood of confusion," said Daniel Kirshner, a trademark attorney in East Brunswick, New Jersey. "It sounds to me in this particular circumstance the trademark is identical. It sounds like they're fairly related goods and services." 
Neither company has raised the issue in a courthouse. But if either one of them did, which would a judge say owns the right to call a product Treo? 
It isn't clear. Both Handspring and Hy-Tek Manufacturing, the company originally poised to bring the Tre? player to market, claim rights to the trademark "Treo." 
"I think the facts are the Treo name we have for our product was trademarked prior to Handspring," said Steve Ferguson, vice president of sales and marketing for e.Digital Corporation. 
Hy-Tek Manufacturing, which decided not to promote the Tre? player because it was late to market, filed an application for the trademark on Oct. 18, 2000, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office . Handspring didn't apply for the same trademark until Aug. 29, 2001. 
While Hy-Tek's earlier filing gives the company priority to the name, it doesn't mean the company can successfully sue Handspring, Bacal said. 
According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, both Hy-Tek's and Handspring's requests for the trademark Treo were "suspended," which means neither company was granted the name, Bacal said. 
Have a comment on this article? Send it . 
Printing? Use this version.