Hot on the heels of O2’s plans to corner the nation’s exclamation marks, comes news that Intel has laid claim to the word “inside”, in so far as it relates to almost anything. British online photo-processing firm FotoInsight is the unfortunate company offering the evidence, given that it was called FotoInside until very recently. Heavy-handed lawyergrams from a clearly bonkers Intel intellectual property department led to the enforced rebranding exercise, as the UK firm felt ill-financed to take on Intel’s army of writ-slingers in the courts. So far as Sneak knows, Intel does not think it owns the word "insight". Sneak is confident that level-headed Honda, maker of the environmentally-friendly Insight hybrid motor car, will not adopt the Intel Inside-the-Asylum approach to protecting its brands. However, lawyers at Nasdaq-listed Insight Enterprises Inc. may share Intel’s zeal, and may be sharpening their quills even now...

29 Jun 2005