GuyClapperton 12 Staff Writer

Jonathan Ive (there, I bet you thought the headline was a typo) is not as famous as perhaps he ought to be. Next to Steve Jobs he has been responsible for turning the Apple brand around, making it desirable again, chiefly by designing the iPod, the first eMacs and substantial amounts of iMacs so that they not only work but they look stunning in your hand or your home. A couple of brands, Apple being among them, have turned technology into a desirable object as well as something useful.

So it's probably a bit depressing for him that someone has hijacked his name and registered it as their domain. Not only that but they've won the case he brought against them on the grounds that he doesn't have a trademark as a name, nor does he use his name commercially all that much. So the various laws protecting his name as his intellectual property don't apply.

I suppose it makes sense, or else anyone else called Guy Clapperton could try to stop me using my own name (actors actually get this, certainly in the UK, if there's already an actor with your name you have to call yourself something else). This would be more extreme if I were called John Smith. It does demonstrate some of the hazards of failing to register your name as early as possible though - I registered clapperton.co.uk in 1995 and would suggest everyone who may need it does the same with their own name in the same way - if you don't, as even someone as important in the IT industry as Ive has just found out, someone else will.