San Jose, California - You have to wonder whether there were any women in the room when the marketing geniuses at Apple decided to call its new gadget the "iPad".

The jokes about feminine hygiene products have been flying since last month's debut.

"Will women send their husbands to the Apple store to buy iPads?" went one joke on Twitter. And a "MadTV" comedy sketch from some years ago about an electronic sanitary napkin called the iPad went viral on YouTube.

Apple, notoriously secretive about its product development process, refused to comment about the name or how many women were involved in the launch. Three male executives introduced the iPad in San Francisco.

Still, brand experts said the name is not so bad.

"It fits with what Apple's been doing consistently. They take literal words that exist and stick an "i' in front of it. And it works for them. It's not offensive despite the silly jokes," said Tye Heckler, vice- president at Heckler Associates.

Ira Kalb, associate director of the Centre for Global Innovation at the University of Southern California's business school, said: "Unless you've been under a rock, you know this is an Apple product just by the 'i' in front, and you know what it does by what 'pad' connotes."

Kalb said the jokes were probably good for Apple and would pass. He said other names floated - iTab, iSlate or iTablet - would have been far worse because iTablet has too many syllables, iSlate is too ancient and iTab too confusing.

"Apple is all about innovation and ease of use. Those names just don't go with that," he said.

The Patent and Trademark Office database said more than 20 people or companies have tried to trademark "ipad", "ipads" or "ipads.com" for such things as vaccines, stationery, makeup remover and bra padding.

If the iPad sells, it won't be the first time a company has been mocked for its name only to have the product fly off the shelves.

Nintendo was swamped with potty-training jokes after it announced its new game console: Wii. - Sapa-AP