Posted on 01/10/2007 2:59:50 PM PST by HAL9000
BREAKING NEWS:Cisco is suing Apple for trademark infringement over its use of the iPhone brand. Full article coming shortly.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I heard yesterday that Cisco had sold Apple the rights to the "iPhone" name. You can trust what you hear in the media.
Apple won't change the name of the iPhone, but they probably will pay Cisco a nice chunk of cash to make them go away.
Ruh-roh!
Apparently Ciscos product with that name is already released. It would take a pretty fat piece of cash for them to rebrand an already released item, a fat enough piece of cash that Apple would be stupid to pay it.
The latest word is that Apple is going to rename the product to iBackdateone (it comes options of course.)
I'm guessing that this suit is another step in the negotiation, rather like war is diplomacy, by another means.
They're just haggling over the price. Now that Apple has announced, I suspect Cisco figures the fair market value of that name just went up. Well ... real market value - I doubt they are worried about "fair."
I was surprised Apple didn't get that name nailed down earlier, when they could reasonably threaten to not use the name if the price got too high.
If Steve Jobs doesn't have an ace in the hole, then he screwed up.
Yup - that's what I read too.
As long as they get the thing on the shelves, I don't care if they call it The Hillary.
So Apple will rename it iSell . . . . er, uh . . . . iCell.
Yeah, that's the ticket. iCell.
UNNNNNGH!
Cisco Sues Apple Over IPhone
Jan 10 6:07 PM US/Eastern
By JORDAN ROBERTSON AP Business Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Cisco Systems Inc. said Wednesday it is suing Apple Inc. in federal court over Apple's use of Cisco's registered iPhone trademark for its new handheld device.
Cisco has owned the trademark on the name "iPhone" since 2000, when it acquired InfoGear Technology Corp., which originally registered the name.
And three weeks ago, Cisco's Linksys division put the trademark to use, releasing an Internet-enabled phone called "iPhone" that uses the increasingly popular Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.
On Tuesday, Apple unveiled the iPhone, its "game-changing" touch- screen-controlled cell phone device that plays music, surfs the Web and delivers voicemail and e-mail.
"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, Cisco senior vice president and general counsel, in a statement. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."
Cisco is seeking injunctive relief to prevent Apple from copying Cisco's iPhone trademark.
What I don't understand is why Apple doesn't have anti-monopoly lawyers going after them.
If anothter company was as proprietary as iPod/itunes, they would be hauled into court.
I'm sure iPhone will only play aif or aac files. Or you'll have to pay to get everything encoded to mp3s so that way you can use files elsewere.
Also what files will the IM or email be in?
So why the heck didn't they just do what others do and callit an "Ifone" or some form of re-spelling...???
Or how about i500 (as in $$)?
Or mePhone?
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