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Suit Filed to Protect Cisco's iPhone Trademark

Cisco today announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Apple, Inc., seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon and deliberately copying and using Cisco's registered iPhone trademark.

This comes a day after Cisco released an official comment saying that they were expecting to receive a signed document from Apple that had been the basis of the discussion between the two companies.

Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after completing the acquisition of Infogear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years. Infogear's original filing for the trademark dates to March 20, 1996. Linksys, a division of Cisco, has been shipping a new family of iPhone products since early last year. On Dec. 18, Linksys expanded the iPhone family with additional products.

"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission".

"Today's iPhone is not tomorrow's iPhone. The potential for convergence of the home phone, cell phone, work phone and PC is limitless, which is why it is so important for us to protect our brand," Chandler concluded.

With its lawsuit, Cisco is seeking injunctive relief to prevent Apple from copying Cisco's iPhone trademark. For more information on the Cisco iPhone product line, please visit www.linksys.com/iphone.

Link: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_011007.html

[Update 1] Link to previous comment from Cisco concerning the issue

[Update 2]
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_013107.html

Joint Statement from Apple and Cisco Regarding iPhone
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. January 31, 2007 - Apple and Cisco have agreed to extend the time for Apple to respond to the lawsuit to allow for discussions between the companies with the aim of reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability.

[Update 3]
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/02/21iphone.html

Cisco and Apple Reach Agreement on iPhone Trademark

February 21, 2007 - Cisco and Apple today announced that they have resolved their dispute involving the "iPhone" trademark. Under the agreement, both companies are free to use the "iPhone" trademark on their products throughout the world. Both companies acknowledge the trademark ownership rights that have been granted, and each side will dismiss any pending actions regarding the trademark. In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.

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a guest said: January 14, 2007 | url    Votes: +0

from slashdot : "An investigation into the ongoing trademark dispute between Cisco and Apple over the name "iPhone" appears to show that Cisco does not own the mark as claimed in their recent lawsuit. This is based on publicly available information from the US Patent and Trademark office, as well as public reviews of Cisco products over the past year. The trademark was apparently abandoned in late 2005/early 2006 because Cisco was not using it." http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=236 Here in New Zealand, according to a search on iponz.govt.nz - Apple has lodged an application for the iPhone trademark (held by InfoGear) - which is currently awating examination. The application by Apple for a hardware product "iPhone" is in a slightly different category than the Cisco "iPhone". It will be interesting to see progress on the Apple application here in New Zealand.

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