Cisco Sues Apple Over Use of iPhone Name

Cisco owns the name which was originally used in 1996 by a company they bought. Linksys a subsidiary of Cisco has a current product with that name. Cisco are not idiots. they make real technology, not cool looking consumer gadgets which break in 3 months.

not only that but Linksys iphone has FCC approval which the iphone does not. in other words it can not be sold in the USA. it says so right on the apple site!

Wrong. Cisco holds a prior trademark.

Cisco are not idiots. they make real technology, not cool looking consumer gadgets which break in 3 months.

I used my 2-year-old iPod on my drive home from work today. I've used it almost every weekday for two years. No problems yet. Just FYI.

not only that but Linksys iphone has FCC approval which the iphone does not. in other words it can not be sold in the USA. it says so right on the apple site!

The product launches in June, and Apple clearly doesn't see getting approval by that point to be a problem or they wouldn't have slapped a date on it. Save your victory dance.

On the actual issue of the trademark, this could be a tricky subject. Trademark law, if I understand it, is a pretty imprecise science, and depends a lot on the subjective interpretation of how much someone has defended the use of it. It looks like Cisco did use the name with their official launch, but that was only three weeks ago and well into the rumors and buzz of Apple's device. It could be that Apple's "ownership" of the iPhone name will rely on public perception, which is really what trademark law protects in the first place. If you don't protect the public perception of a trademark belonging to you, you lose it... and no one save for the ubergeeky has associated iAnything with Cisco for some time.

At the same time, I can easily see a judge swinging the other way and making Apple change the name or pay hefty royalties due to the legal hangups and Apple's stalwart willingness to apply a name for a product that was still up in the air.

1) Linksys is reputed to make sucky equipment --a t least their routers have a poor reputation.
2) FCC approval is probably independant of name and trademark considerations; the FCC is mostly concerned about RF interference and Janet's Jackson's wardrobe malfunctions.
3) My iPod is a year and a half old. It still works. I typically use my Macintoshs for about 5 years.
4) When you are on top, everybody has their hands in your pockets.

Interestingly, Cisco and Apple lawyers have been negotiating this for some time - given the cachet of the name, it's not surprising that their talks broke down. Cisco was probably trying to leverage a percentage of unit sales against licensing the name to Apple, and Apple was probably trying to buy the name outright. Cisco probably thought that if they forced the issue running up to the Keynote address they could leverage concessions from Apple, and since they haven't had the experience negotiating with Apple, were surprised by Apple's lack of response to their arm-twisting.

Cisco has also entered a phase of consumer development, having gained ground there through some acquisitions, leading with Linksys. (As a personal aside, I had hoped that the acquisition of Linksys by Cisco would significantly improve the performance of the brand of equipment - notably, at least in my experience, Cisco has left it to languish in abject mediocrity).

Cisco only trademarked the iPhone name in 2000, during the big rush to tm anything i-related. Cisco's real technology relates primarily to its networking infrastructure and SAN equipment, not anything substantially highly valued in the consumer market. Whatever quality they leverage seems to be entrenched there, not on the consumer side - which is where a large amount of money can be made.

Where FCC licensing is concerned it has nothing to do with the name of the device, only the device itself and its functionality as a transmitter/receiver in the radio bands - they have licensed tentatively named devices in the past without comment, so this point as well is not valid. The licensing as indicated in the keynote, was a noted future event, since Apple wanted to do the announcement of the device before it was leaked via the registration process with the FCC.

As far as the Cisco/Linksys IP phone iPhone, it is a strap-on computer phone for use with Skype and similar IP phone functionality. This will play out interestingly in court as Cisco attempts to show that they had "always envisioned and planned for" a rather clunky and limited use transmitter/receive device for the PC to develop into anything like the cell-based technology of Apple's product. It would be a weak assumption to make that the Apple lawyers haven't already made provision for and built a substantial case around challenging Cisco exclusivity on the trademark of the name. The fact that Apple let the deadline side by without response means that the lawyers had already found enough precedent to allow for a suit defense.

It wasn't an oversight. They've been negotiating with Cisco for years. They couldn't get the deal made before MacWorld, but were obviously confident enough that a deal would get done prior to launch. Even Cisco said a deal is "imminent." The lawsuit is a CYA move, as well as leverage in the negotiations.

This is much ado about nothing.

If Cisco did not file the suit, they would not be defending their trademark. That would be self-defeating. They needed to file the suit in order to have any leverage to continue negotiations.

exactly. they could have been a little more creative... i mean what is a pod? put an i in front of it, and its an iPod. they could have easily called the iPod the iMP3, the iPlayer, iPortable, iMusic, etc. With the engineering and software ingenuity created with the new product, it deserves a better name than an iPhone.

iLife Mobile

I personally think that the iPhone is a much better name, it's short, memorable and conforms to the naming standard set by the iMac and iPod, iLife Mobile on the other hand sounds verbose, the contraction, iLife, which many would call it, is already the name of a completely different product with a completely different focus.

I like it! Nobody gets sued over making an iLifeMobile. Apple would hear only laughter.

...on that note, this is the company that named itself after a rather unremarkable fruit.

"this is the company that named itself after a rather unremarkable fruit."

The Macintosh is tastier than the Red Delicious, IMHO.

How about the iLickMyBallz?

Since WiFi coupled with a full-fledged browser, and the ability to play widescreen movies and hi res photos, are the cornerstones of the product, why not call it iPr0n. After all, that's what it'll be used for...

I'm a fan of the granny smith myself, but that's probably not the best thing for all the cool kids.

what does it signify - does anyone know?

Back in the days when Apple's only "i" product was the iMac, the "i" stood for Internet, which was marketed as a simple, Internet-ready PC. But now, the "i" doesn't really stand for anything—it's just a brand Apple has cultivated over the years. In fact, one might argue the "i" lost any meaning when iTunes and the iPod were released.

Hmmm - maybe Apple should just register iProduct? Then they can insert whetever it is as a secondary moniker!

Well, if there's one thing I've learned, it's never to judge who is right until you've sat in the court room and seen all the evidence. Cisco -could- be pulling a last minute maneuver in an effort to negotiate a better deal.

Or, Apple could have jumped the gun.

Frankly, I suspect it's a little of both.

The only thing we know for sure is that the two companies -were- in negotiations and that there was an expectation that Apple was going to sign a final agreement on the day of the announcement.

What no one knows (other than Apple and Cisco) is what was in that agreement vs. what was in all of the other discussions.

At any rate, don't convict one or the other until you know enough to do so. That isn't likely to be the case any time soon.

From yesterday's Cisco iPhone press release:

Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statement that were distributed to them last night and that addressed a few remaining items. We expect to receive a signed agreement today.

They didn't receive the signed document today, but it looks like a nearly done deal.

Exactly...and filing the lawsuit was a move intended to hasten the agreement.

www.linksys.com/iphone

The Linksys phone is a VoIP phone for your home network, not a cellular phone.

Freedom and Convenience: Connected to your home network and a telephone landline, you can use a cordless handset to easily make calls to other Skype or Yahoo! users, mobile phones or land lines. Wi-Fi capable handsets allow you to place calls from anywhere there's a wireless access point.

The precedent of putting "i-" or "e-" as a prefix for a product name was set by many companies in the Internet, Computer, and Communications industries back in the mid-90s, during the early
stages of the first Web Bubble.

It is not a precedent in which Apple can claim exclusivity, particularly since the "iphone" trademark was established long before Apple started using the prefix in their branding.
Calling prior precedent in this case only reinforces Cisco's claim to the earlier Trademark.

Never mind the fact that newspapers, analysts, blogs, and tech sites have been calling Apple's phone "iPhone" for years without word one of litigation or cease and desist notices from Cisco...

According to some legal analyists, Cisco failed to defend their trade mark, and even when they got around to defending it after the fact they did so only half-heartedly once they found out Apple might be coming out with the iPhone:

blogs.zdnet DOT com/Burnette/?p=236

Cisco lost rights to iPhone trademark last year, experts say
excerpt:
The Cisco iPhone trademark was registered 11/16/1999 (Reg. No. 2293011). In order to keep a trademark registration active, you have to file a Declaration of Use on or before the sixth anniversary of the registration date, in which you state, under penalty of perjury, that you have been using the trademark continuously during that period. The sixth anniversary would have been 11/16/2005.

Cisco did not file the Declaration of Use by 11/16/2005, which if they had been using the trademark would seemingly have been easy to do.
...
In fact, this seems to be true since the Linksys CIT200 and the Linksys CIT310, (both of which I reviewed) are now called the iPhone and were only recently renamed on December 18th. Specifically, each Linksys/Cisco product is called the Cordless Internet Telephony Kit or iPhone for short. The PDF manuals still reference the old name, such as this manual for the CIT200 and I couldn't find a single reference to the word "iPhone" in the manual even though I see "iPhone®" with the registered trademark throughout their website. I guess they missed that. Time to re-print/convert those PDFs!

Cisco's claim on the trademark looks at this point tenuous at best.

You make a good point, but I don't think Apple helped themselves in that case by continuing to negotiate with Cisco for the trademark; or in setting up a dummy corporation to attempt to license the trademark without appearing to be directly attached to an Apple product.

That serves to reinforce that Apple had at least the perception that the trademark was still enforceable in the interim.