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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.
2 years buys a lot of time to find a better name than some fisher price type naming. I thought Apple was an artistic company?
Robert X. Cringely talks about this in his weekly post today. He points out that Apple already conceded the "i"-prefixed name from the iTV to Elgato, makers of the "EyeTV":
So Apple changed its marketing, diluting its whole "iThis" and "iThat" naming strategy in deference to Elgato, a company they could buy with a weekend's earnings from the iTunes Store, but chose to go toe-to-toe with Cisco, a company that's bigger, richer, and just as mean as Apple any day.
He says it all boils down to big publicity stunt, wherein Apple will get a big, free publicity boost when they finally back down and rename it the "Apple Phone". He also goes on to give his explanation for why the iPhone^H^H^H^H^H^HApple Phone won't support Cingular's 3G network.
Cool funny t-shirts for geeks, gamers and everyone else
I think people are going to keep calling it iPhone anyway, though.
You seriously have to wonder what were they thinking when they named it the iPhone without an agreement in place. One can only speculate that they planned to change the name all along but they needed to get the news out there about it and this was the best way.
Apple has no chance if this does make it to court... The fact that they've been trying to license the name for years proves that they acknowledge Cisco's trademark as valid.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
Suckling at Apple's dick might be a good way of getting a dose protein by many slashdotters. But it's hypocritical.
Apple is ALL ABOUT:
-DRM
-Proprietary hardware
-Proprietary software
-Closed protocols
-Lock-ins
-selected compatibility
And just about everything else relating to total control. It's CEO is also know for pulling tantrums.
If you prefer Apple because its one and only way fits well, that's fine. But please stop looking down others (Microsoft users, Linux, etc), because you're the inferior drones.
Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents.
IANAL, but I think the Patents icon is misleading here. While Patents and trademarks can share similar intellectual property issues, they're applied to different things for different reasons. A patent is generally to protect a method, product, device, or similar tangible things, while trademarks are used for words, phrases, logos, symbols, and such descriptives.
The rules governing them are also fundamentally different on many levels. For example, while you can patent something and then sit on it until someone else actually makes the thing and then sue, a trademark must generally be in use to remain protected.
More, as usual, on WP.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
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.
Hey Steve, why not just call it the íPhone
davecb5620@gmail.com
iPod phone.
Which would be called the iPhone by the general public giving Apple a defacto trademark.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Legalities aside, and I'm not defending the legal aspects of Apple's continued use of the mark, but I'm sure Steve was "surprised and disappointed" too. Apple was apparently talking with Cisco all that time, just to have Cisco actually ship a product with the name just a month before the MacWorld keynote. If Cisco wants to paint itself as the poor hapless guy who got shafted on a sharing agreement mid-negotiation, I don't think it will really hold water. Apple spent how much on the collateral printing for the keynote, prior to the Cisco release? If Cisco puts out an iTurd with an "iPhone" sticker, I'm sure Apple's desire to be associated with Cisco and to share the trademark drops even more.
Note that Cisco is trying to win in the court of public opinion. Apple is remaining very mum about the whole thing. Which one is going to be seen as reasonable public pre-trial behavior in a court case is actually very debatable.
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After reading the full article, it seems very likely to me that this 'open approach' and 'interoperability' stuff from Cisco is them trying to hitch a ride on the success of the apple iphone. I can understand why Apple doesn't want their phone associated with the Linksys phone, so quite frankly I don't see how this can come as a surprise to Cisco.
On the other hand, iPhone is quite clearly a trademark belonging to Cisco, and Apple knows it. So should be interesting to see what is going to happen.
The difference is that when the iTV was announced they specifically said that wasn't the final name, presumably because they new about the existing trademarks and possibility of confusion or litigation. In this case, they called it the iPhone, and even though they knew all about the existing trademarks they didn't say anything about the name being a placeholder. I don't think they have any plans to change it unless they're forced to.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Not to be a Jobs fanboy, but the MacWorld keynote had a specific time and date, and the negotiations for iPhone moniker were not completed. End of story. So continue negotiations. No need to go into the magical dark elf world of lawyerdom where logic is tortured and common sense outlawed. It's just a fricken word.
This is another example of the much-beloved Apple saying a firm no to interoperability. Now, it's probably the case that Cisco was asking for way too much. But this highlights Apple is only a little different than say, Microsoft when it comes down to pissing matches and interoperability.
At this point in history, both OS vendors will eat their babies. Beware brother, beeeware.
Mod me down for saying an unkind word about Apple, but there is at least a little truth to it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Steve Jobs isn't an 'Enemy' of open source. He doesn't activly fight against open source.
No third party apps* was so he could get a carrier.
*I think we all know people will find a way around this.
He is certianly NOT my hero. There are many thing to ream him on, this really isn't one of them.
It is interesting that this conflicts with an earlier memo from Cisco stating that all they needed was to wrap up some minor details of an agreement.
I don't know what Jobs is thinking, I do know he isn't stupid.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I like that. It helps to reduce squatting, speculation, and hoarding.
What?
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.
Apple could probably have got away with calling it an iTV without upsetting ITV, since trademarks are domain-specific and a set top box is a very different domain to a TV channel. Unfortunately, the Apple TV is (feature-wise) very similar to the Elgato eyeTV, and this would cause confusion in the marketplace, and so be a problem. The difference between Elgato and Cisco? Elgato make products that add value to Apple brands, Cisco doesn't.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
1) Apple's reliance on the "i" series of trade marks it already has. It will use this as a means of satisfying a test to determine the likelihood of confusion between the products. Some US legal experts have already claimed that this may not be a runner. We'll see (the area is heavily fact-specific so don't judge!)
2) Cisco's failure properly to defend its iphone trademark against usage by other third parties involved in a similar line of business. Can't really comment on that seeing as I don't know enough about it. what's funny however is that a google search for "iphone" gives you about 7 pages of results on the Apple product and diddly squat on any else.
There are two other factors which I can see, but which I think haven't necessarily been talked about much:
3) Cisco knows full well (but omits to mention) that Cingular will not allow Apple to "do VoIP" on its cells. An invitation to commit to interoperability between two companies looks on the surface like something both would want. After all, both are respected organisations with lots of R&D skills and a (generally well thought-of) reputation for execution. However, because the business plan could not yet allow that, Apple sensed a dangerous honey trap designed to lure it into an exclusive tie-in on VoIP on the iPhone platform. As we know, Apple partners with who it wants when it wants.
4) As this article http://www.out-law.com/page-7650 suggests, Cisco may lose its EU trade marks in "iPhone" shortly. Apple may have filed the revocation notice itself. If the filing succeeds, Cisco will almost certainly have to settle.
As you can see, it's a muddy one. I'm not hugely impressed with Cisco's line that "it was never about the money". It's always about money if you think that you're paying more than something is worth. Apple's probably seen that 4) is likely to succeed, and will stall until Cisco is forced back to the table with a lower price. My 0.2$
> No third party apps* was so he could get a carrier. Bull. There are plenty of smartphones/PDAs carried by all the major carriers that have no restrictions on third party applications being installed - Treo, Windows Mobile devices, etc.
Not really - the iTV downloads video and plays it on your TV. ITV transmits video to your TV (ok, not directly, but I digress).
There's heaps of space for confusion there. Not to mention ITV is a household name whether the overlap is there or not.
To frame it in a way Americans can relate to, If they'd named it 'CNN' they'd have had the identical trouble.
How about the ]Phone? Then the next generation could be the ][Phone.
Translation: Cisco wanted a bigger slice of Apples pie than they deserve & Apple wasn't having it.
Any dildo with a good battery can come up with a name, it takes style to make it popular, somthing that Cisco lacks.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
iPhone is an appliance. I don't want third-party apps on my fridge; I don't really want (to need) them on my phone.
If iPhone is just a phone then it's an outrageously expensive previous generation one.
The whole *point* is that it is also a PDA - thus justifying the cost. If it's just a phone then it's got no chance.
C'mon, Apple. Call it the WiiPhone. Or the XPhone360. Or the ApplePhone With Jay Leno. There's lawyers starving on the East Coast who desperately need the work, and having to settle for 5 series insetad of 7 series.
You seriously have to wonder what were they thinking when they named it the iPhone without an agreement in place.
I think it's very simple: they were dead set against leaking anything about what they were going to announce at MacWorld, so they couldn't risk divulging anything about it to Cisco and felt they could just smooth things over after the fact. They bet they could negotiate for the trademark with Cisco later. They didn't count on Cisco actually releasing a product first, but by then Apple's secret plans were already set in stone.
Apple was bit by their own desire for secrecy, that's all. They didn't want anyone talking; it's the not talking that's gotten the whole company in trouble this time.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
What did Cisco want? '[We] wanted an open approach.'
'What did Cisco want? [We] approached Steve and asked him to open his wallet'
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
A PDA is an appliance in the exact same way. If it doesn't do what I want, out of the box, then it's not the PDA for me. I'm not getting into farting around *administering* a damned PDA!
Is it just me or has the iPhone recently had an Apple logo tacked to the front of it's name like the (apple)TV?
I'm sure this gif has changed since the keynote.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
What I find very strange is that Apple choose to use the iPhone name, as they wanted to use the Mac trademark more. I can understand that they would use the iPhone name as a continuation of the iPod brand, or to lift on the rumors of the press.
As the phone is basically a Mac OS X machine (if that is correct information) I would have expected they would call it the MacPhone.
From this point of view it would be unlikely to be called the Apple Phone. MacPhone also sound nicer.
I disagree; IMHO there's potential for confusion between a product based around TV and a TV channel. I don't consider the two to be "very different domains". More significantly, there was ITV plc's digital terrestrial TV service, "ITV Digital", which used set-top boxes. Although this was disastrous and went bankrupt, I suspect most people still remember of it (it was the basis of Freeview). Plus, ITV plc seem to be keen on leveraging the ITV brand, and I doubt they'd take kindly to something which *is* broadly in the same domain using their name.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
You're confusing open standards and open source. Cisco contributes regularly to RFCs and generally opens it's protocol standards... the ones _they_ developed to solve problems.
Open source people often miss the point of standards and interoperability, somehow thinking that having many "standards" that you can peruse the source of is somehow useful. That's why they sound like such ignorant assholes when they bash companies like Cisco (or Sun, etc).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A record company selling Beatles music sued a computer company selling microcomputer hardware, the former having a red apple logo, the latter using a rainbrow-striped apple with a bite in it. Which "Apple" was doing the steamrolling, here?
I mean, should Anya Seton's estate executors be suing Toyota and Marion Bradley?
The standards regarding "infringement" require than the trademark similarity be prone to cause marketplace confusion between the products, diluting the brand.
Of course, Apple's prima facie argument that VOIP and cellular phones are too dissimilar to cause confusion remains highly questionable. It's true that the two are fairly dissimilar markets, but that could easily change, especially given Cisco's otherwise-spurious "interoperability" line. That request alone may prove to a judge that there's at least a case that the two markets are insufficiently dissimilar to allow Apple to use the same trademark.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
ok, so i'm probably more of a macboi than i want to admit, but here goes:
this seems to me like burger king coming out with a McCoffee drink, knowing McDonald's is about to do the same, then suing McD's when they do.
apple has been using the i* for quite some time, going back to the iMac in what? 1999? i know of no i* branding used by cisco before the iPhone. I think that apple would have a compelling argument on that fact alone.
it really seems like cisco is saying "hey, wait for me guys!... guys?", by sneaking in an iPhone months before the keynote, as another post pointed out.
mr c.
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
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".
The Cisco General Counsel says they bought a company that had purchased the name in 1996, and if you look at the Wayback Machine, Cisco references the product on their website as far back as 2000 (after the iMac came out but well before the iPod was released).
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
...you'll see Steve Jobs' picture next to the definition.
"They didn't count on Cisco actually releasing an iPhone product first, but by then Apple's secret plans were already set in stone." Yes, their PR applecart was upset by Cisco's move. Ironically, the avid response of its user base to the perceived superiority of all Apple products actually works to their disadvantage. Their instance to using the iPhone Trademark regardless of the fact that Cisco owns it will only make Cisco's case of proving it has been harmed easier as it is clear that there is a demand for products under the iPhone moniker and hence they are well within their legal rights.
Apple gets more airtime with the non-geek community because the only thing that news loves reporting on more than pop stars getting arrested is large companies suing each other. iPhone doesn't exist yet - when it does, Steve can claim that iPhone was only a working name and call it whatever their marketing staff says will get people's attention.
Cisco, on the other hand, gets ink for a product that just about nobody has heard of.
Everybody gets publicity, no money changes hands, no foul called.
The Apple product hasn't been released yet. Being that they "announced" a product with a name, it's not for sale yet. So technically no damage has been done YET. So Apple probably figured that the negotiations with the iPhone trademark would be resolved prior to release date of the product which is sometime in JUNE!
The part that Cisco is pissed about is the fact that apple's iPhone isn't compatible with the cisco iPhone family of products. Apple wanted just the name, not the technology, so cisco is pissed.
Makes sense to me. Apple should have just called it "?Phone" (Apple Phone) like iTV went to ?TV because of existing iTV products on the market. And mind you, being the product is currently VAPORWARE until June, it still could.
Did you read the post I was replying to? The poster was wondering when we were going to get a touch screen iPod without the phone, and that Apple would sell tons of them.
So we're not talking about the iPhone.
I haven't done a whole hell of a lot of research on this yet... isn't it ironic that Cisco released an "iPhone" 3 weeks before Jobs announced their "iPhone." Also if they had been negotiating... which they apparently have been... Cisco probably had some sort of general idea when Apple would want to use this name for their product, and then BAM the new Linksys iPhone... and did anyone ever question that instead of being the masters of patent trolling (which should be illegal) just wanted to be a stickler in the butt of Apple merely because they have been growing so well?
Insert funny smart-ass comment here.
This may be your view, but I'm not sure it's representative of the majority of people, at least those of which I have witnessed here in the UK in public. The majority of consumers I witness with phones use them for a large number of other things - from VNC, to video streaming (such as Orb), games, remote desktop, SSH, instant messaging, IRC and so forth - a phone gives you connectivity wherever you go, and for a lot of people, this means more than simply being able to ring people, but to use this connectivity in other ways.
To compare it to a fridge is just laughable - a phone with third party applications allows you to take advantage of connectivity to achive things you couldn't otherwise, wheras with a fridge this isn't so. If I'm on a train journey and I want to say a quick hello to a friend or family, check my home computer, stream a video from my home computer, in an emergency restart something on my server if something has gone wrong and I'm the only one around, or even to simply play a game that someone has written in their spare time, I can do that - wheras without that connectivity from the phone I could not. The same is not true with a fridge.
I simply fail to see how NOT being able to run third party applications is a good thing, an advantage - you don't have to, but surely having that freedom is good, and being deprived of it when nearly all other phones offer it is not good. Well, I suppose it must be good, you know, if it makes sure a bad application can't "bring down half of cingular's netwok"...
I just don't understand how Apple's phone and Cisco's phone would inter-operate. I know that if I bought one, why the hell would I want it to inter-operate with that phone? It seems Cisco wants to be friends with Apple and Apple is too cool for friends. It's kind of pathetic.
amtron amtronx@yahoo.com
I don't get why Apple doesn't just call it the iPod Phone. iPod is an existing, well-established, trusted brand. The iPhone hardware is an iPod -- that is, it gives you all the same features. It just has phone and camera features added on. So what? Nothing about the name "iPod" says "MP3 player." They already added video playback and nobody batted an eye. What better way to revitalize the iPod brand than to add a line of products with phone features?
Breakfast served all day!
They should do what they did in 1991
Call it the Sosumi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi
Apple has a history of using unusual humor to its advantage
Watta bunch of hypocrites!
Think EyeTV, not ITV. :)
Apple is an artistic company, and until recently they were largely a "we don't play dirty like Redmond" company
It is the sort of petulant "but we're so much cooler than Cisco" that I might expect from Microsoft, but never from Apple.
I think your view of Apple's company history is being distorted by Jobs' reality-distortion field.
IAATL - trademark law is one of my specialities. The Cisco iPhone trademark was registered 11/16/1999 (Reg. No. 2293011). In order to keep a trademark registration active, you have to file a Declaration of Use on or before the sixth anniversary of the registration date, in which you state, under penalty of perjury, that you have been using the trademark continuously during that period. The sixth anniversary would have been 11/16/2005. Cisco did not file the Declaration of Use in the requisite period. However, the USPTO gives you an extra six months grace period, if you pay an extra fee. This grace period would have expired 5/16/2006. Cisco filed a Declaration of Use on 5/4/2006 which kept their registration active. Had they not filed, their registration would have been canceled. With the Declaration, you are required to file a copy of a label or other packaging showing the trademark in use. Cisco filed a picture of the box for the Linksys iPhone. Now the Cisco press releases I have seen indicate that Cisco released the iPhone products in December 2006. Now this is my personal opinion based on the information I have seen so far (your mileage may vary): Cisco may have a problem with its trademark registration because it has not been continuously offering a product under the iPhone trademark since 1999. They knew that Apple was interested in the name (since Apple had approached them and negotiations were ongoing). If Cisco didn't launch a product using the iPhone name, their trademark registration would be canceled and they would have no bargaining chips with Apple. So in order to keep the trademark active, they had to file the Declaration of Use, and start selling a product under that trademark. It is possible that the Declaration of Use is defective, as there was no continuous use, and the sample that Cisco submitted was for a product not released until 7 months later. The fact that the Declaration of Use was submitted only days before the deadline expires gives me the impression that they were scrambling to get a product to market, and had to file the Declaration before the product was ready. Apple's lawyers will have certainly found the same clues that I did, and may believe that Cisco's registration can be cancelled (by proving in federal court that the Declaration of Use contained mistatements of fact - there was no continuous use). If Apple believes that they can get the registration cancelled, they may not have wanted to sign the agreement Cisco proposed. Without the registration, Cisco and Apple would still have a trademark dispute to resolve, but Cisco will have a harder time proving that it has valid trademark rights.
I dunno, when Cisco/Linksys finally released something called the iPhone, I'm sure they had Apple and law suits in mind. Cisco/Linksys certainly knew Apple was making a phone and that they wanted to call it the iPhone. So, rather than call it something, anything, along the lines of the rest of their product line, they deliberately use this one for law suit protection. Imagine if it goes to court and someone asks "You own the name, why don't you have a product that uses it?"
i mean, other than macFone, or applePhone (Phone)
The iphone trademark was in use by what is now a subsidiary of Cisco long, long, long before Apple even thought of considering using the name.
On a completely unrelated note, Cisco is in no way in danger of losing their trademark in Europe. You don't automatically lose the trademark if you don't use it for five years. Five years is just the minimum time you have to wait before applying for a decision on their trademark revocation. The judge will take one look at the application, note that Cisco is currently using the trademark (IE, it wasn't trademark "parking"), and rule against it.
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
iAnal
If they were, they'd have thought twice about announcing a conflicting name, right? Um lawyers think, right?
I think if Microsoft made a phone it would be called "Windows Media Active Direct-X Phone Explorer".
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Let's see how many companies/institutions I can come up that use the trademark iPhone. Cisco, Apple, upenn.edu (iPhone voice/mail service,) OIT Network Services, Comwave...
I don't need to go on. I could find this all day long. Cisco has never tried enforcing it until apple came along - they're far too late.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Cringely suspects that the whole thing is a marketing stunt. They had 2 major announcements at mac world:
1) iPhone
2) iTV
They both had trademark issues. iPhone was with Cisco and iTV was with eyeTV. They changed the iTV to Apple TV. They could have just as easily changed iPhone to Apple Phone or something else. Why didn't they do it? Cringely writes that he thinks it's for its marketing value. It guarantees that iPhone and the lawsuit will stay in the news long enough for everyone in the country to have heard of it. I don't know if this is the real reason but it does fit the facts. I wonder if the cost of a lawsuit is less than a TON of commercials and other advertisements.
www.joshferguson.org
If anyone owns the trademark to the letter 'i' it should be Sesame Street.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
Mr. Walt Disney purchased large tracts of land in Florida through front companies to avoid tipping Disney's plans for Disney World too early and shutting out the whole program by putting the price of purchase too high.
But hey - he was less than above board and decieved Florida landowners. Fuck him in the ear and burn his corpse.
They should have gone with iPone thus linking the pod and the phone in the "i" world.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
First of all, it isn't "no third party apps" - it is "developers, if you want to write for iPhone, contact Apple Developer Relations (and make sure your hat is in your hands)."
This is no different than the business model used for gaming systems.
You have to decide which paradigm applies - a development free for all or a controlled system. Guess wrong and there are consequences either way.
They may announce something at WWDC this year. I'm hoping that will happen.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
iPhone is a terrible moniker. It's a lot more than a phone really. It's a whole bunch of cool/pointless/indispensable/extraneous widgets piled into one. The Blackberry is not the Blackberry Phone. My accursed Treo 650 is not a TreoPhone. Heck, the Razr isn't even limiting itself with the phone tag.
I bet the brand management folks at Apple are pulling their hair out right now. The iProducts are very consumer oriented, and this product has stunning potential in the business (smartphone) market. What to do, what to do... I hope they name it something else. Easier to sell my boss on the product under some other name.
Apple really, really wanted to use Sosumi as the ringtone on this phone.
If you want to show a public display of affection for such an electronic gadget, buy a personal digital assistant.
He says it all boils down to big publicity stunt, wherein Apple will get a big, free publicity boost when they finally back down and rename it the "Apple Phone".
Does Apple really NEED the publicity? Seriously...the iPhone was probably the biggest news of the week, even with CES happening at the same time in Vegas. If anyone is getting publicity out of this, it's Cisco.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
As this device is running OSX and has many of the basic OSX apps, why not call it a macPhone in line with iMac, Mac Mini, PowerMac, MacBook et al.
Don't tailgate - the end is near!
than trying to appropriate a trademark that another company has been using for 10 years.
:wq
On a completely unrelated note, Cisco is in no way in danger of losing their trademark in Europe. You don't automatically lose the trademark if you don't use it for five years. Five years is just the minimum time you have to wait before applying for a decision on their trademark revocation. The judge will take one look at the application, note that Cisco is currently using the trademark (IE, it wasn't trademark "parking"), and rule against it. Or the judge will see that the trademark wasn't used until a month ago, and is actually (IP'hone), not (i-Phone).
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Burp!
I think Cringely has it about right. Although its difficult to determine motive from a distance, perhaps since tasting the forbidden fruit of illegal stock options, Steve Jobs has slipped over to the Dark Side of the Force?
Why do I get the feeling that Apple lovers are going bonkers over potential competition? Is the Cisco iPhone such a threat that it might produce a ripple in the force that might endanger their closed Apple-centric universe? Or is it just that being seen as second in the market place of ideas is just too uncool for Applephiles who have been seduced by the Apple PR machine to accept?
Is this an Apple PR meltdown or what?
Could there be a strategic shift in the public perception that "Apple is always cool" paradigm?
Your attempt to rewrite the history surrounding the Cisco acciquisition of InfoGear and its strategic goals can hardly be used to justify the blatant misappropriation of the "iPhone" trademark by the Apple rumor-mill. It is hard to imagine that the Cisco purchase of InfoGear or its rollout of the iPhone was or is now " an act of desperation" and an attempt to "capitalize on the buzz" of the rollout of a single gaget, especially since these plans were laid out over 5 years ago as part of a much broader rollout of numerous other "TCP/IP networked appliances" (ie conference phones, home settop TV/Cable entertainment systems, wireless routers, etc].
If there is a buzz here it may be associated with the daze which seems to overcome "Apple fan's" efforts to spin the Apple "iPhone" launch fiasco.
Cisco sees VOIP and TC/IP integration services, such as Skype, as a complement of its larger strategic vision in that for a relatively small fee (typically under $30 per month and which will be driven lower as the result of mass marketing) one can have unlimited VOIP/and TCP/IP service. Such phones are now going for about $80 and can be expected to drop to under $50 as the Walmarts and Office Depots of the world begin to ramp up their marketing. The LinkSys cellular link is presently more expensive (but is currently available at about $200), but costs will come down for cellular versions as well as hardware interoperability issues are resolved. Likewise, software interfaces will greatly improve on these essentially "open" devices. One is already seeing the ability of many to swap SIM cards in order to "transfer" ones phone to another cellular carrier, without the consumer being held hostage to a single wireless carrier. This "open" solution is good for customers.
Apple has sought shelter under the wing of AT&T in its attempt to enter the telecommunications market and its not surprising that AT&T is more than happy to oblige as the traditional telecommunications companies have the most at stake in the inevitable shift to VOIP and TCIP/IP services and away from POTS. My guess is that if the Apple phone is successful, AT&T will buy Apple or at least its "phone division" to keep it from spining out of its orbit. Why Apple fans want to become captives of Cingular (an AT&T subsidiary) is beyond me (as a Cingular customer living in a market with only a few relatively bad [expensive] choices for celluar service).
I think Apple's snub of Cisco's efforts to cooperate will eventually be more widely recognized as a strategic blunder, which will hurt the company as it attempts to compete with other "iPhone-like gaget/gear companies". Its also hard to see how a "spectacular" interface, whose functionality can be duplicated by third partiy mimics, will provide value over and above the roughly $380 ($300 for the phone and $80/month for the bandwidth) premium Apple phone users will need to pay to obtain essentially the same functionality from IEEE 802.11g devices. The high price will keep their market share minute compared to the rapidly unfolding commoditization of IEEE 802.11g devices, whose LCD screens and/or touchpads can be modified to suit a variety of user preferences in multiple niche markets.
"Beware of finding what you're looking for." -- R. W. Hamming
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Cisco BOUGHT a company that had the iPhone trademark. Big difference."
From a legal perspective this is irrelevant. They OWN the trademark and have prior use of it. As it stands now, Cisco has the potential to capture all of any profit Apple may make from selling its "iPhone" as well as potentially triple damages, if the court finds the violation flagrant and willful. My guess is when their legal team finally explains this to them, they will settle with Cisco. What price Cisco will extract from Apple in exchange for dropping the suit is an open question. They might simply drop it for the good PR they will have received at Apple's expense or they may extract strategic or monetary consessions from Apple.
Your rewriting of the history of the Cisco InfoGear purchase is rather silly. For Cisco the iPhone is only one of many TCP/IP products that it is rolling out in a variety of markets that will ultimately integrate media and data telecommunications generally across ALL platforms in a multiply-networked universe, with of course, Cisco at its center.
I wouldn't say Apple suffered a slap in the face from Cisco. Rather it seems that Apple simply slipped up and bumped its head.
Hmm. Now that's interesting.
Apple's gained quite a reputation in the security community of being rather non-responsive -- not just with researchers, but with the press. Some other businesses I know of that have needed to deal with Apple are reporting the same thing.
Cisco's choice of words here is really, really interesting.
Sounds like messaging is broken in Cupertino across the board. That's the sort of thing that should not be publicly visible...
(I'm posting this publicly rather intentionally.)