AppleInsider StaffCisco on Wednesday evening said it is suing Apple for trademark infringement in federal court, claiming that negotiations had broken down between the two companies over use of the iPhone name.
"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," claimed Cisco senior VP and general counsel Mark Chandler in a statement accompanying the suit.
The networking giant, which released its Linksys iPhone scarcely three weeks before the Macworld San Francisco keynote on January 9th, had obtained the trademark in 2000 but did not believe it had a reason to use the iPhone title until it was ready to ship a VoIP handset that it thought merited the name.
During his keynote presentation at Macworld San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that his company's cellular network-based iPhone had been in development for roughly two and a half years, placing its inception approximately four years after Cisco originally registered the trademark.
Apple has so far remained silent regarding the progress of negotiations and the resulting lawsuit.
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92 Comments
Ouch.
- Xidius
Teh big suck.
why not do that @phone too? this was waiting to happen. I can't believe Apple was naive to think that Cisco was just gonna let them use "iphone" knowing the tremendous impact Apple's new product has placed in the phone market in just one day.
Teh big suck.
Why dont apple research trade marked name before naming their products, sometimes steve and his band can be so stupid!
Why dont apple research trade marked name before naming their products, sometimes steve and his band can be so stupid!
Apple was aware of the previous trademark, CDMM. I think they insisted on using it because everyone referred to the mystery phone as "iPhone" and Steve probably thought we should go ahead anyway, and let the chips fall where they may. It's far more valuable to Apple as a brand... but damn. Oh, well. It's still not too late to call it MoPho™.