Technology 11 Jan 2007 12:00 am
Cisco Sues Apple over iPhone Name
by Sean Hackbarth
Steve Jobs and Apple (APPL) aren’t perfect. They came out with an amazing device that ups the ante in the cell phone, music player, and mobile computing space only to get hit with a lawsuit by Cisco (CSCO) who owns the iPhone name:
Cisco today announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Apple, Inc., seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon and deliberately copying and using Cisco’s registered iPhone trademark.
Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after completing the acquisition of Infogear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years. Infogear’s original filing for the trademark dates to March 20, 1996. Linksys, a division of Cisco, has been shipping a new family of iPhone products since early last year. On Dec. 18, Linksys expanded the iPhone(R) family with additional products.
“Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco’s iPhone name,” said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. “There is no doubt that Apple’s new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.
John Biggs thinks nothing of it. Apple has until June to get this settled. If they can’t settle with Cisco they’ll need a new name. italk is off the list (owned by Griffin). iCall is off the list. Apple could steal iChat from itself. If Jobs wants to ditch the “i” prefix (it is getting a tad stale) he could go along the line of Apple’s notebook computers and call it the “MacPhone.” That’s my early pick.
UPDATE: Already the suit has high entertainment value. Paul Kedrosky looked through Cisco’s suit and found Apple used a front company to file an application to use the iPhone name. To make this legal battle a little muddier Kedrosky points out Apple has rights to “iPhone” in Australia, Canada, and the U.K. If you want to hear more of Cisco’s side it’s defending itself on its corporate weblog.