News

Cisco Elaborates on iPhone Trademark Situation

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 10:45 AM - by

Cisco head of development Charlie Giancarlo, speaking to England's The Times during this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, said of the iPhone name: "The iPhone mark has been ours since 1996. Apple did ask if they could buy it. We didn't want to part from it." A company representative confirmed the situation and issued this statement on Tuesday: "It is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final documents and public statement that were distributed to them last night, and that addressed a few remaining items."

Cisco had presented those documents to Apple's lawyers the night before Apple CEO Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote address Tuesday morning, but the company would not provide details of the proposed deal.

Asked for comment, Apple's senior vice-president for worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, would not address the Cisco issue and simply said: "There are a number of companies that have used iPhone, but this is the first use in a cellular phone. We feel fine using it as a cell phone name."

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jan 10, 2007 11:57 am

Sounds good to me. I will call my new non MP3 playing gadget iPod i don't think Apple should have a problem with that. So, what happens if Cisco decides to bring their iphone from under the WIFI world? I think Apple better get this in writing otherwise we'll have Another Apple vs Apple lawsuit Iphone vs Iphone. Glad to see that Yoko is driving the bus again.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jan 10, 2007 12:34 pm

Frankly, I find the name "iPhone" to be tired and trite already, even though the product was just announced. Surely Apple could have come up with something more creative.

iPhone is also a very limiting term. After all, the iPhone really isn't a phone at all; it's really a PDA with cell phone functionality. Why not leverage the already pervasive iPod brand? How about iPod Connect or iPod Communicator or something to that effect?

iPhone? Bah.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:30 pm

iPhod? haha

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tbone1 said:

member since 13 Jul 2001 with 3976 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:46 pm

Anonymous wrote:
Frankly, I find the name "iPhone" to be tired and trite already, even though the product was just announced. Surely Apple could have come up with something more creative.

iPhone is also a very limiting term. After all, the iPhone really isn't a phone at all; it's really a PDA with cell phone functionality. Why not leverage the already pervasive iPod brand? How about iPod Connect or iPod Communicator or something to that effect?

iPhone? Bah.

iMadeBillGatesCry?

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Actual Reality said:

member since 16 Aug 2005 with 44 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:59 pm

so... by apple's naming logic, this is just the CONSUMER release...

can't wait for the Phone Pro...

or better yet, the Apple Phone, with component out!

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:31 pm

Yes, that's right. Yoko Ono is behind this.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:39 pm

We already have iPod nano and iPod shuffle; I'm surprised it wasn't simply "iPod phone".

As a side note, anyone thinking that, once the iPhone is good and launched, an iPhone nano won't be too far behind-- phone + music without the Internet?

rY.

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 999 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:49 pm

Phil the Schil spoke to soon. Cisco field a trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple today in federal court. Oops.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/10/D8MIN5CO0.html

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:59 pm

It's a Mac nano any way, and that's what I will continue to call it!

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2076 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jan 10, 2007 9:58 pm

Bosco wrote:
Phil the Schil spoke to soon. Cisco field a trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple today in federal court. Oops.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/10/D8MIN5CO0.html

As the article SHOULD have noted, that is a common business practice for companies in licensing negotiations. It increases the pressure on one side. For a company the size of Cisco, filing a lawsuit costs next to nothing. What will be critical, though, is exactly how the original iPhone trademark application was worded. There have been cases where something crucial was left out that opened the door to other users.

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 999 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:48 am

Actually, it isn't just common business practice. It is mandatory that they enforce the trademark or they will lose it. Trademark dilution is something every trademark holder has to be very wary of.

What I am most struck by this week is how true the iPhone rumor turned out to be. I didn't believe it, and it felt very cart before the horse to me. Apple should be in the driver's seat of announcing its products. Not rumors sites or message boards or Shaw Frigging Wu. But Apple didn't apply the brakes to this run-up. If it hadn't been true, the keynote would have been a disaster. Heck, even with it, most are wondering where the new Macs are, what is in store for the iPod, etc.

So agree with me for the sake of argument and then put on Cisco's shoes. If you're Cisco, you're not just pissed off about the name. You're pissed off because of how Apple let this build up and you think that Apple probably saw your iPhone as trademark squatting, which pisses you off even more. And then, knowing Apple, they told you about this firm plan last Wednesday, which gives you no time to actually draft an offer, but barely enough time to leak it to reputable journalists in retaliation. You know, Steve looks up John in his address book, makes the call and tells him to get his lawyers and accountants busy and get back to him. And through no overt fault of Apple's, but all fault of the Apple community, you've lost any tie you ever thought you had to the iPhone trademark. You're Cisco. How pissed off and scammed are you feeling this week?

This one's gonna be a blood feud. It's probably the first time a company literally managed to hijack a non generic trademark from another company. Even if Apple changes its mind of the name, Cisco is screwed by how it's been diluted and tarnished. This will be a big, ongoing deal.

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ziploc said:

member since 10 Jul 2001 with 14 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:38 am

Bosco wrote:
You're pissed off because of how Apple let this build up and you think that Apple probably saw your iPhone as trademark squatting, which pisses you off even more.

Cisco head of development Charlie Giancarlo wrote:
"The iPhone mark has been ours since 1996. Apple did ask if they could buy it. We didn't want to part from it."

Apple's first "i" product was the iMac in 1998! So Cisco/Linksys was there first, although Apple may have officially trademarked "iMac" as far back as 1996 as well.

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A guest said: (hide)

Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:19 am

Apple's iMac trademark gives it no special rights on the iPhone trademark. It is irrelevant.

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