Mon Jan 15, 2007 1:01 pm

Sounds like it is a bit of going into a room where you're not wanted. It shouldn't come as a surpise. Everytime this has happened Apple has squashed any attempt to infringe on its interface and look. Yet people keep making the same mistake again and again. It's like teasing a pit bull.

Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:55 pm

No Dirt, copyright is not "enforce it or lose it". You are confusing copyright with trademark, which is. Honestly, I don't know why anyone will even want to put an Apple phone skin on their current phone, except to tell Apple to screw itself at this point. There are better ways to protect IP than this silly exercise. Black eye for Apple.

Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:09 pm

That's assuming Cisco actually still has the rights. That has now come into serious question.

Apple has always rigorously defended its trademarks, looks, etc. Nothing new on that front.

They could of course just buy Cisco and be done with the lawsuit.

Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:25 pm

Yeah, it was a joke. It was, wasn't it?

But whether Cisco actually still has the rights is moot.

Macscoop wrote:

A recent report on ZNet blogs revealed that Cisco could have lost its rights on the "iPhone" trademark it had registered in 2000. According to the law, a trademark registered by a company may go back public if the company in question doesn't use it for the next five years after it has registered it. Cisco only released products using the "iPhone" brand last month, which is way too late. Moreover, it appears that, back in May 2006, the company had provided "fake" documents to the trademarks office, showing a fictitious product box with the "iPhone" trademark printed on a stick. The controversal filing "proving" that Cisco was using the "iPhone" trademark was provided to the trademarks office just days before deadline. As for Apple, it has reportedly created a company called Ocean Telecom Services LLC with the purpose of obtaining the "iPhone" trademark either through registration at the trademarks office or through an agreement with Cisco. Apple did never confirm or provided comments regarding the claims related to Ocean Telecom.

As for jokes, when I get mine (2008, apparently), I'll put only reggae and dub on it and call it the I an' iPhone.

Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:47 am

Guest wrote:

Here's a better analysis of that same point. If Apple can argue that Cisco failed to defend the trademark until it launched the new iPhones in 2006, it could possibly convince a judge that Cisco abandoned the trademark, Stanton said. Cisco has said that it used the iPhone trademark on VoIP phones sold in early 2006, and maintains that is has actively defended its trademark. "We have taken all actions necessary to satisfy all elements to prove the validity of our trademark under trademark law," a Cisco spokesman said. However, settlement is the most likely outcome of this dispute, given the burden of proof on Apple needed to overcome Cisco's trademark registration, the lawyers said. "Even big companies get legal fatigue," Radack said.

There are other complications. (Aren't there always?) Two companies in the US use the iPhone name for services or products. (There are others in Canada and the UK, but the Cisco trademark only applies in the US.)

Comwave has a service it calls "iPhone," but it also applies the name to the hardware that is used for the service.

Teledex makes a VOIP device and system for hotels. (It looks like a pretty neat device. It has a 5.6" touchscreen, so the hotel can offer visual information on the phone.) The press release for the VOIP iPhone is dated October 24, 2005. There is an earlier press release, dated June 21, 2005, that announced the analog iPhone. I also found that Teledex applied for the iPhone trademark on March 7, 2005. (Go to the Patent and Trademark Office page for trademarks and click on "Search" in the right column. Links to search results don't work.)

It turns out that the Cisco trademark was registered on November 16, 1999--not 2000. Cisco's Linksys division announced their iPhone on December 18, 2006, so they were more than seven years from the registration date to the release of the product.

The applicable law is 15 USC 1058, "Duration." If I deciphered the legalese correctly, it appears that, while a trademark normally has a duration of 10 years (and can be renewed), the government can cancel the trademark registration after *6* years (not 5) if it has not been used. The registrant has to file an affidavit during the year before the end of the 6 year term. However, they can have a 6-month "grace period" by paying an additional fee. That's where the May, 2006 date came from:

November 16, 1999 + 6 years = November 16, 2005 (normal deadline)

November 16, 2005 + 6 months = May 16, 2006 (with grace period)

Here is a good explanation by an attorney.

Sun Jan 21, 2007 5:59 pm

	Anonymous wrote:
	wait, what? they went after the report? this guy said, hey look, someone is making themes based on the apple look and apple went after him? not the guys who actually did it, but the guy who just spread the news? what, did they miss? talk about going after the wrong guy.

Check further. As I understand copyrights (I'm not an attorney), distributing an "illegal" (for want of a better term) copy could be an infringement, just as creating that illegal copy could be. Our to-be-attorney guest could certainly expand on or correct that.

Some years ago, I was active in the Apple/Mac forums on CompuServe. ("Some" started in 1985, but this was in the early '90s, as I recall.) One of the forums had several libraries of sounds, usually very short, mostly in the System 7 format. (Those could be used for system alerts, for example.) Included were a lot of short clips from Star Trek which an experienced attorney on the staff of the forums (I was also on the staff for a while) had determined were well within the then-current fair use guidelines. (One criterion was length--under 30 seconds or something like that.) They were not for commercial use. However, Paramount, the owners of the Star Trek name and copyrights, wrote a "cease and desist" letter to the forum owner--NOT to the people who had recorded and uploaded the files. The letter threatened legal action if the files were not immediately removed. The forum owner had little choice, as he could not afford to fight Paramount, even though his attorney believed that the files fit fair use and that the forum owner might well prevail in a suit. In the months or year after that, Paramount allegedly went through AOL, CompuServe, and other online systems, looking for ANY mention of the name "Star Trek" and other words associated with the series (e.g., Spock, Romulan, Klingon). Letters went to many forums, bulletin boards, etc., even in cases where "Star Trek" was mentioned in a message discussing the series.

For a more recent example, consider the RIAA suits and actions against people who DOWNLOADED pirated copies of songs, even if they did not upload them. (To be fair, if they were using something like Napster, they were also uploading, whether or not they understood that.) It didn't matter that the people had not created the copies.