[patrickyeon]

It's perfectly reasonable for two entities to have trademarks on the same word, so long as they aren't in the same business. In this case (without looking at the relevant legal paperwork), HTC could trademark 'Thunderbolt' with respect to phones, mobile devices, whatnot, while Intel may have the trademark with respect to peripheral data connections. Nobody (except maybe Monster Cable) would have an issue with that arrangement.

[cookiecaper]

And what if a phone one day wants to support a Thunderbolt interface? I think that they're a bit too close to one another, both being parts of the consumer electronic space.

Thunderbolt the phone, however, can be expected to have a much shorter lifespan than a new connector like this.