As regular readers will know, we like to periodically rummage among the journals at the UK Intellectual Property Office, to see what names might be appearing on bootlids in the coming years and months. Some call it speculative research, while others call it a pointless obsession and a waste of time.

For your amusement we present the fact that one Ian Gordon Murray of Surrey has applied for automotive-sector trademarks covering the names iStream, iFrame and iCentre.

Of course Ian is the real first name of car designer Gordon Murray, and these new applications belong to the same Ian that has also registered the distinctive mermaid emblem of the Gordon Muray Design company. So we are forced to wonder if the three names above are destined for the T.25 city car project.

We think iStream would make a fine name for an iPod-generation runabout, and clearly you would zip along to an iCentre rather than a stuffy old dealer to buy one or to have your iStream serviced.

We’re not sure what an iFrame might be, though. Perhaps it’s a trailer or roof-rack so that the ultra-compact T.25 will have somewhere to put passengers’ luggage?

Feel free to provide better or more sane suggestions via the comments section, below.

Fiat, meanwhile, has applied for trademarks on Micky, Mickey and Michi, the last of which must surely be the name of the rumoured Fiat Topolino small car. Topolino is, after all, the Italian name for Mickey Mouse as well as the name of a 1930s small Fiat, so what better name for a modern reinvention?

Update: Michi/Mickey/Micky sounds like it might be a hedge bet - on the same day last year, Fiat also applied for trademark protection for the name Topolino, although it hasn’t yet been advertised in the journal. So assuming that Fiat gets the trademarks it wants, we assume it will be going forward with the better-known name.