Rumors have been rife that Apple is working on an upcoming smartwatch and now the company has applied for a new "iWatch" trademark in Japan.
With the trademark application for iWatch, Apple has all but confirmed the existence of the wearable device.
"Apple Inc., the world's most valuable technology company, is seeking a trademark for "iWatch" in Japan as rival Samsung Electronics Co. readies its own wearable computing device," reports Bloomberg.
According to the Bloomberg report, Apple apparently filed the trademark application on June 3 with the Japan Patent Office, which covers several products "including a handheld computer or watch device." The filing per the report was made public last week.
Earlier in February, two people familiar with Apple's plans let on that the company had hired 100 product designers to work on a wristwatch-like device, which would be capable of some functionalities available on the iPhone and iPad. What's more, in June, we reported that Apple had filed the iWatch trademark in Russia.
Apple, however, is not the only one looking to dominate the wearable technology space. A few months ago, Samsung's EVP disclosed that the company was working on a smartwatch.
"We've been preparing the watch product for so long," Lee Young Hee, Samsung's EVP, told Bloomberg earlier in March. "We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them."
Sony recently launched its own smartwatch, the SW2, which is expected to hit the shelves in September. With competition in the smartwatch space increasing, it seems Apple want to establish a stronghold in this space sooner rather than later.
While Apple is yet to announce it's first-ever smartwatch, the trademark application for the iWatch hints that the company is gearing up to debut the device soon. With Tim Cook letting on that no new iDevices would launch before fall, a strong possibility exists that Apple could be readying the iWatch for a September release.
