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Cisco Sues Apple Over iPhone Trademark
lucabrasi999 writes "It appears that Apple may be running out of items that they can prefix with the letter "i". Cisco is suing Apple over trademark infringement. Cisco claims to own the rights to the "iPhone" trademark since they purchased Infogear in 2000. Infogear filed for the rights to the trademark in 1996."
The key phrase being, "willing to negotiate" -- for what? Large sums of money would be my guess.
Don't for a moment believe that a company like Cisco would give in without enormous sums of money changing hands.
Or maybe they want a percentage of profits? Apple stock? Who knows.
You can lose a trademark through dilution if you let it become generic, but what about if you don't use the trademark at all? Even before Apple's announcement, I expect almost anyone hearing the word "iPhone" would associate it much more strongly with Apple than with Cisco.
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They'll change the name, and everybody will still call it the iPhone and know it refers to Apple's phone whenever you hear iPhone, not Cisco. Mission accomplished.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
However silly we might think trademark law
I think current patent and copyright law is silly, but trademarks are a bit different, IMO. I believe it is really is important for consumers to be able to tell that they're buying from one company as opposed to another. Quality control and service are meaningless if others can easily impersonate or cause confusion as to who you're really dealing with. Trademarks do a good job at handling this.
It may be that things have gotten out of hand with the interpretation, that is, courts being too sensitive to what creates "customer confusion". Also it was easier when trademarks were more local in scope, but the internet has kind of blown that. Still, I think trademark law is a greater good than evil even today.
(and this coming from someone who was cease-and-desisted by Mattel a few years back)
Cheers.
Cisco actually played their trump card on Dec. 18th when they released the iPhone under their Linksys brand; despite the fact that they were actively negotiating with Apple over the use of the mark.
Personally; I hope the judge hands down the ruling "You've both been acting like complete dickheads."
KFG
A great point. Apple and Cisco probably already have an agreement-in-principle about the use of the trademark, but the paperwork wasn't finalized in time for the conference.
Given the way that US trademark law works, where you have to actively defend your trademark, Cisco _has_ to sue Apple to show that they are defending their trademark, otherwise anyone would be able to abuse it. However, just because they lodge a lawsuit doesn't mean that they've got an army of trained attack lawyers ready to take Apple down.
My bet is that it's purely a pro-forma move to defend the trademark, which will get dropped the instant the paperwork for the agreement is done.
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
It does seem a little suspicious, since if Apple was begging for the trademark "for years", Linksys had to be very aware of this fact.
...
... it just seems out of character, particularly with a device for which there are so many good names.
I think Linksys introduced their iPhone to counteract an expected argument that the trademark was not in use. As I remember, it was a hasty rebranding of an already existing product line. It would be hard to argue that the name was well-established commercially.
I can't help but notice that the Apple iPhone itself has no visible marks on it, other than the Apple logo on the back. They could change the name from iPhone to jPhone or kPhone in seconds flat.
One thing for sure: The value of Linksys' trademark is virtually zero today. Whenever anyone says "iphone", Apple will be the reason why. And the beauty of that rather curious argument is that the public did it by so relentlessly using the name before launch. Apple itself didn't do a thing to destroy the trademark before launch day.
Apple may rename the product, if Linksys is asking for too much, but I'll bet that years from now people will still be talking about iPhone, even as they use their pMacs or MacPhones.
Trademarks are funny that way.
Finally, will this curious little squabble have any impact? I'm curious since I don't think the amount of money this dispute could yield would be worth the executive time it takes and the odd publicity brought to both companies.
Unless the publicity was the idea? It seems like this has single-handedly given the Linksys iPhone product a blaze of the kind of publicity you simply can't buy.
I do wonder now if this was a setup by Linksys and they didn't intend to give up the trademark without a loud and public fight, not for the money but so that someone, somewhere in the world would hear about their product and maybe buy a couple of them. It's not a bad strategy, especially since they seem like the underdogs
I mean, this case sounds like an example of the stubbornness of Steve, but what if it's an elaborate publicity stunt? Smart one, too.
I wonder how much publicity Tiger Direct got out of the bizarre Tiger vs Apple suit?
You see, I really wouldn't think Steve would make a dumb decision like not have the rights nailed down tight before MacWorld
D
From Yahoo Finance
Yeah, Apple may be a big nasty company, but Cisco is bigger and nastier.
My money is on Cisco.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
1 - Everyone's been expecting an iPhone from apple for years.
2 - Cisco has owned the iPhone trademark for years.
3 - Most people obviously didn't know this; Apple probably did.
4 - Apple ANNOUNCE iPhone as expected. Fanboys faint.
5 - Apple announce AppleTV and rebrand corporation
6 - Cisco Sue. Become 'Bad guys'
7 - Apple RELEASE device as ApplePhone, strengthen branding, please everyone. Except Cisco...
8 - Profit!
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