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Cisco VP Explains Lawsuit Against Apple
Dekortage writes "The day after Apple announced its iPhone, Cisco sued over the name. Mark Chandler, Cisco's SVP and General Counsel, has posted an explanation of the suit on his blog: 'For the last few weeks, we have been in serious discussions with Apple over how the two companies could work together and share the iPhone trademark. ...I was surprised and disappointed when Apple decided to go ahead and announce their new product with our trademarked name without reaching an agreement. It was essentially the equivalent of "we're too busy."' What did Cisco want? '[We] wanted an open approach. We hoped our products could interoperate in the future.'" Another reader wrote to mention that already, Cisco's trademark might be in trouble in Europe.
You seriously have to wonder what were they thinking when they named it the iPhone without an agreement in place.
Maybe they figured negotiations were well underway, and that the CEO of a company as big as Cisco could avoid having his poor wittle feelings hurt and acting like a jilted bride?
Apple, of course, has a long history of trying to steamroll other companies' trademarks, not the least of which would be the "Apple" name itself. In general, it has worked pretty well for them, so I don't anticipate any change in their policies. I expect that Cisco will probably relent after extracting a settlement from Apple. In the long run, though, I also expect that iWhatever will eventually be successfully challenged, probably by some relatively small company with more stubbornness than sense. (To be fair, as much as I dislike IP laws in general, if I was selling an iWidget, and I finally ended up in a smoky room full of attorneys saying, "Here's $5 million. Now shut the fuck up," I'd probably shut the fuck up.
;)
The main reason the iWhatever branding strategy is shaky is that it amounts to claiming a trademark on a letter of the alphabet. Intel tried that strategy with numbers and it failed, which is why the 80586 came to be known as the Pentium, and this was with a company with pockets so deep they could hold a bushel of Apples.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Tru Dat.
The idea that Apple is any different than any corporate giant is laughable. Any fanboy of a company that size is just another consumer whore.
Apple's solution to the trademark problem is eary. All they need to do is backdate the trademark and then assemble a committee of shill to look into it. Surprise, they'll find that the back dating was completely legitimate.
If there are any questions, place the blame on some low level employee who will take the fall. Make sure that it's too complex for SJ, so he has the excuss that he "doesn't understand all that legal mumbo-jumbo".
OOhhh good come back. I'm a geek and I know lots of geeks. None use Linux, none care about open source. Most use Windows. I use OS X. Out of about 50 geeks I know not one uses Linux or cares about it or open source.