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.

Comments

Openness and Cisco?

[jsailor]

Open like: (E)IGRP, HSRP, CDP, ISL, BGP hacks, and many, many other protocols and technologies.
Please, Cisco was looking to use the trademark as a tool for wedging their way further into the consumer market segment and gaining some form of inside track on a device that Apple wants to keep third parties off of. Combination WiFi and cellular phones are somewhat hot in the minds of some corporations as are many forms of communications "convergence".

Pretending that Cisco is open is like pretending that Microsoft is an innovator. There are shreds of evidence to support the claim, but by and large, it's untrue.

Re:Find a better name

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, the mac zealot mods are sure out in full force today. Two harmless posts and 3 negative moderations.

Is this true, Apple made a new company to

[Shivetya]

circumvent the naming rights?

If this article is right Apple needs to be burned a little

http://money.canoe.ca/News/TopPhoto/2007/01/10/327 9889-ap.html

Re:MOD UP: Mod points going to Mac users today?

[Enderandrew]

And please mod this up!

Re:Find a better name

[aplusjimages]

I hear that Mel Gibson trademarked iHateJews. It's an Apple product that gets you slightly drunk so you can start hating Jews and blame it on the alcohol.