Apple's rumored tablet to be named iSlate?

Some slick domain name and trademark sleuthing from MacRumors and TechCrunch uncovered information about several islate-containing domains and the companion trademark “ISLATE” that may point to Apple as the company behind this mark. It all began with MacRumors which uncovered information about the domain islate.com, a TLD that passed through several hands until 2007 where it landed with the registrar MarkMonitor, a well-known registrar that handles and hides domain registrations for large companies including Apple. Close inspection of the domain name history reveals a brief lapse in late 2007 which exposed Apple as the actual owner of the domain. A look at other TLDs reveals that MarkMonitor also registered islate.co.uk, islate.biz, islate.info, islate.jp and islate.cn in the month of November 2006. Other country designations such as, islate.de and islate.fr, don’t fit into the puzzle as they are registered to known companies with islate.de being registered to a Innovative Dynamics GmbH and islate.fr being registered to the IP property law firm of Wilson & Bertherlot. The mystery deepens when one takes a look at the “ISLATE” trademark information uncovered by TechCrunch, though. Hit the jump to read on.

Moving away from the domain information and looking at the trademark information, an unknown Delaware company called Slate Computing filed a trademark the word ISLATE on November 21, 2006 in both the US and the EU. Listed on the EU application was the legal representative Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge, a law firm with a history of working with Apple. Also curious is the priority company listed on the EU application — Trinidad & Tobago, a country used by Apple in other EU trademarks applications. Slate Computing seemingly does not appear to exist online or in real life but the extensive business description provided on the trademark application fits Apple to a tee, leading TechCrunch to hypothesize that the mysterious company is a shell for Apple. Piecing everything together, Apple, either through MarkMonitor or a shell company called Slate Computing, may have registered a series of iSlate TLDs and filed a trademark for “ISLATE” in both the EU and the US. BGR readers with an opinion chime in and let us know what you think — is Apple behind all this activity surround the name “islate”? Is iSlate really destined to be the name of the rumored tablet? We’re not feeling the name one way or another.

Read [MacRumors] Read [TechCrunch]