Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Oops...Apple announced iPhone too soon

Apparently they weren't so close to reaching an agreement after all:
Cisco Systems Inc. said Wednesday it is suing Apple Inc. in federal court over Apple's use of Cisco's registered iPhone trademark for its new handheld device.

Cisco has owned the trademark on the name "iPhone" since 2000, when it acquired InfoGear Technology Corp., which originally registered the name.

And three weeks ago, Cisco's Linksys division put the trademark to use, releasing an Internet-enabled phone called "iPhone" that uses the increasingly popular Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

On Tuesday, Apple unveiled the iPhone, its "game-changing" touch-screen-controlled cell phone device that plays music, surfs the Web and delivers voicemail and e-mail.

"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, Cisco senior vice president and general counsel, in a statement. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."
Ouch. Well, this development may very well take a bite out of Apple's plans to launch this product. Cisco wants the courts to bar Apple from copying its iPhone trademark, and it seeks protection of its brand.

UPDATE: Indeed, Cisco wasn't happy at being blown off. From Cisco's blog:
Today’s announcement from Cisco regarding our suit with Apple over our iPhone trademark has spurred a lot of interesting questions. Most importantly, this is not a suit against Apple’s innovation, their modern design, or their cool phone. It is not a suit about money or royalties. This is a suit about trademark infringement.

Cisco owns the iPhone trademark. We have since 2000, when we bought a company called Infogear Technology, which had developed a product that combined web access and telephone. Infogear’s registrations for the mark date to 1996, before iMacs and iPods were even glimmers in Apple’s eye.

[...]

So, I was surprised and disappointed when Apple decided to go ahead and announce their new product with our trademarked name without reaching an agreement. It was essentially the equivalent of “we’re too busy.” Despite being very close to an agreement, we had no substantive communication from Apple after 8 PM Monday, including after their launch, when we made clear we expected closure.
Cisco is understandably upset. Few people enjoy being blindsided.

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