–Dan Kelly, Attorney
As Steve has noted, I find it amusing that the Droid phone from Verizon licenses DROID from Lucasfilm Ltd. To my mind, the Droid “eye” theme is a poor imitation of another famous fantasy character: the Eye of Sauron, from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. When I see the Droid eye, I immediately hearken to the movie version of the Eye of Sauron:
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(The above is a stylized version by the movie’s visual effects art director Paul Lasaine. Click here for a really unnerving view.)
But what’s more, I think this may be an attempt at humor. Verizion is now offering an “Eye” phone. Get it? Pretty funny, huh? Seriously, I can see this being the case, and the humor might run out if the promotion gets too big (which I don’t really see as a risk here). What if the Droid “eye” promotion really went viral, and people started walking into stores asking for, you know, “one of those ‘eye’ phones?” Long shot, I know, but if it happened, Apple might not find it so funny . . . that is, presuming that Apple has actually ironed out its rights to the IPHONE trademark.
And don’t get me started about the wisdom of the Droid “eye” campaign in the face of the recent laptop spying news out of Pennsylvania, especially when Verizon is co-branding with Google. The Droid may indeed have its “eye” on you in more ways than one.