Cisco Sues Apple Over Use of iPhone Name

Authored by Jay Baage on January 10, 2007 - 2:39pm.

San Francisco - Cisco Systems, with Chief Executive John Chambers, sued Apple Inc. in federal court on Wednesday, claiming that Cisco owns the iPhone trademark. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the long awaited Apple iPhone at the MacWorld trade show in San Francisco on Tuesday, but Cisco claims that Apple does not have the right to use the name 'iPhone'.

In spite of some reports yesterday to the contrary, the matter of the high-profile product's naming had not been resolved behind the scenes between two of the biggest names in Silicon Valley.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris called Cisco's lawsuit "silly" and said there are already several other companies using the name iPhone for VoIP products:

"We believe that Cisco's U.S. trademark registration is tenuous at best," she said to the Associated Press. "Apple's the first company to use the iPhone name for a cell phone. And if Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we're very confident we will prevail."

According to Cisco, Apple has approached the company a number of times over the past few years about a licensing agreement to use the name iPhone, and that talks had heated up in the past few weeks. But communication between the companies ceased Monday, and even while Jobs was holding court at the Macworld Conference and Expo, Apple lawyers had not signed and returned the final contract.

Related Links:
AppleTV - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
The iPhone Controversy and Apple's Big Brand Challenge
Analysis: Cisco’s iPhone vs Apple’s iPhone - My Bet Is On Cisco
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070111/ap_on_hi_te/cisco_apple_10
Cisco Press Release

Published in DMW Daily, January 10, 2007

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Comments

Not Likely...

Submitted by llh (not verified) on January 16, 2007 - 5:35am.

Cisco obviously jumped on the bandwagon Apple built with the naming of the iMac, the iPod, iChat, etc. It could, and likely will, be successfully argued that not only does Apple have the right to use an obvious extension of a line of well known products, but that Cisco should be counter-sued for trying to take said obvious extension for itself, squatting and capitalizing on Apple's marketing efforts with the preceding products. Cisco is clearly in the weak position from where I'm standing, not Apple.