1/11/2007
iPhone: Cisco vs Apple
If you were paying attention to all the hype building up to the Apple iPhone announcement on Tuesday, then you might recall the little snag concerning who actually owns the "iPhone" name.Even though Apple unveiled the iPhone in San Francisco this week, Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems Inc., announced a product called the iPhone on December 18th, 2006. The Linksys iPhone is a Web-enabled telephone handset capable of making calls over the Internet using voice over Internet protocol (VOIP).
So how can two different companies lay claim to the "iPhone" name? That's the problem... they can't.
Linksys, actually owns the "iPhone" trademark because of a Cisco acquisition. A company called Infogear registered the "iPhone" name in 1996. Then Cisco then absorbed the "iPhone" trademark when it acquired Infogear in the year 2000.
So what happens now? It's all up to the lawyers. Cisco filed a lawsuit against Apple yesterday in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Basically Cisco and Apple need to reach a settlement or Apple will have to call their iPhone something different like iChat Mobile.
According to the NY Post, Cisco thought it had reached a deal with Apple. The two companies were reportedly engaged in heated talks over the "iPhone" name the past few weeks leading up to the Apple iPhone announcement.
"We sent them final terms on Monday, but we never got approval back," Cisco spokesman John Noh told The Post. "We're very open to sharing the trademark. We made that clear. But then they went ahead and used the name without our permission."Apple has been trying to get the iPhone name away from Cisco since 2001 when they first released the iPod. Will Apple finally be successful? They obviously have something up their sleeve or they wouldn't have halted talks with Cisco and just announced the iPhone this week. It will be interesting to see what happens these next few months.
Apple plans on releasing the iPhone in June 2007.
digg story | methodshop
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Unfortunately, in the US, a company can trademark a word. The problem in this case is that the trademark wouldn't exist without Apple's trademark iName scheme. This could actually go either way. Personally, I think "iPhone" is a s
[*] posted by 
: January 12, 2007 8:26 AM
: January 12, 2007 8:26 AM
I bet if Apple didn't think they were either bigger than the law or that the whatever this lawsuit and the resulting agreement (assuming there is one) will cost them far less than the value of the hype being generated by using the name and the resulting news.
Perhaps they should just name it iHype.
Perhaps they should just name it iHype.
Apple did release a true iPhone which is a hell of a lot better than the Linksys one. Too bad we wont to get our hands on it till much later though. But the Linksys iPhone... it doesnt have a prayer.
This is the big Question all are talking about and apple just seems to keep doing things liek this, they also had a problem with the beatles and the point they started itunes under the apple name which is music and what they said they would not do years ago to the beatles. (but apple won that court case).
Apple's arrogance surprises me. It's one thing for them not to want to enter the kind of agreement Cisco seeks. But for Apple to pursue to release the product with full knowledge that they don't own the trademark is wild. THey changed the set-top box name from iTV to Apple TV simply because they don't own iTV. Then again iTV sucks and the iPhone is better. The ironic thing is it's called iPhone yet the 'phone' is the product's weak feature: they chose Cingular as the carrier. They might as well have used T-Mobile.
I think it was a great move for apple to come out with the iPhone it has most features consumers have been wanting to have and i think the price will not deter people from buying the apple iPhone. I even think they will sell more then the 10 million apple iPhone they expect to sell within the year.
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