Trademark filings might show future OS X names: Yosemite, Redwood, Mammoth, California, Big Sur, Pacific

Following the introduction of OS X Mavericks and Apple’s new naming scheme inspired by locations in California, there has been much speculation about which famous California destination might be the name of future releases. Today, French blog Consomac has discovered trademark filings for other California locations that appear to be linked to Apple.

The site found trademarks for Yosemite, Redwood, Mammoth, California, Big Sur, and Pacific, all of which are registered by one of two shell companies, Yosemite Research LLC and Coast Research LLC. While that wouldn’t normally be enough evidence to assume Apple is behind the filings, the site also found the trademarks include protection for operating systems and connections to Apple through the lawyers that filed the application. From the translated report:

Other names have also caught our attention, and we found three trademark filings made by the Company Coast Research LLC, also domiciled in “1209 Orange Street Wilmington” and managed by the Corporation Trust Company.The three deposits Coast Research LLC were made exactly the same day as Yosemite Research LLC, and there are also places on California and Class 9 of the Nice Classification. We already know all the names of California and Pacific, and Big Sur means a large part of the California coast. We also discovered that Stephen Brown, a lawyer who has filed the brand is none other than the lawyer who had filed in 2009 for Apple iGuide the brand .Interesting coincidence!

The filings also included other lawyers that Apple has used in recent years to file for trademarks for upcoming products under shell companies. It’s not really enough evidence to know for sure if Apple is behind the filings, but it’s clear someone setup these shell companies— which were just registered as businesses last year— to get control of these names for future software/operating systems. Apple goes through this process with every new product it releases and, with so many connections to Apple from the lawyers involved and the shell companies, there’s a good chance Apple is behind the filings.

As highlighted in one of the filings in the gallery below, most of the trademarks apart from California have been registered in as many as 30 countries around the world.

OS X Mavericks, a name taken from a well-known surfing location in Northern California, was the first OS X release announced under the new naming scheme when announced back at WWDC in June of last year. We previously reported on details of Apple’s next version of OS X, 10.10 (codenamed Syrah), which will introduce a much flatter look that takes inspiration from the recent iOS 7 redesign.

Update: Macrumors notes a few more admittedly less likely naming options have emerged:

– Diablo, Miramar, Rincon, and El Cap (Landmark Associates LLC) 
– Redtail, Condor, and Grizzly (Cassowary Devices LLC) 
– Farallon, Tiburon, and Monterey (Asilomar Enterprises LLC) 
– Skyline, Shasta, and Sierra (Antalos Apps LLC)