Submitted by Cisco has sued Apple over the use of the ‘iPhone’ brand. “Cisco today announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Apple, Inc., seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon and deliberately copying and using Cisco’s registered iPhone trademark.”
Did anyone not see that one coming?
I didn’t. I didn’t know Cisco had this product, but I’m also not exactly a prime candidate for their products either!
Cisco’s iPhone is a VoIP phone, which is a very reasonable lateral move for a company specializing in enterprise IP hardware. Big companies want to get rid of their legacy telephone lines and consolidate communication over their more advanced data networks.
Apple is arguing that the two iPhone products are materially different because their’s is a cellular phone whereas Cisco’s is a wired IP phone. However, there is nothing (that I know of) preventing users from using Apple’s iPhone as a wireless IP phone using Skype or something similar.
It’s obvious that Cisco has the engineering resources to make their iPhone wireless as well. Cisco is arguing that while the products might be a bit different right now, trends in network consolidation suggest that the two products could very well compete head-to-head within a relative short timeframe.
Now, I don’t think Cisco has plans to move into the cellular market or into the portable media player space, but it’s not hard to see them doing a portable PIM device like a CrackBerry. So, the battle over the iPhone trademark is complicated by the fact that the Apple iPhone does so many things, a couple of which are reasonable market opportunities for Cisco.
I don’t think there’s any way that Apple is going to walk away from this lawsuit the victor. Either they’ll change the name, pay Cisco an 8-figure settlement for the rights, or (most likely) grant Cisco some rights pertaining to iTunes/FairPlay.
This much is fairly clear. The multi-million-dollar question that nobody has convincingly answered is why this situation was allowed to get to this point. This is like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and considering the marketing prowess of at least one of the parties (if not both), there’s got to be a reason why this trademark dispute was allowed to boil over like this. This lawsuit is probably in Apple’s best interests for some reason, as if they are baiting Cisco into some sort of trap.
In the big picture, the iPhone is a HUGE product for Apple, likely to supersede the iPod in many markets in a few years. This has been in the works for years, a big bet for Apple. They wouldn’t use this product to pick a fight with another big-name tech company unless they knew exactly what they were doing.
They could have called their other new product by its codename, iTV, but they instead chose Apple TV. Why the obviously contentious iPhone instead of something like Apple Phone?
I didn’t see it. Personally I have no idea what to think of this. I can see the need for protecting brand names – OTOH brand names ought to be rather different than ordinary names. Putting one or two letters in front of an ordinary name is hardly worthy of protection, IMHO.
Erm .. i am sure this was on digg almost a week ago. I might do a search for it later. But it was during the time of speculation about the iPhone and the fact that Cisco already owns the trademark …. so i wasn’t surprise when I saw this today
I guess now would be a good time to trademark iFridge, iToaster, iCouch and definitely iBeer…
don’t forget to TM iShit 😉 And for politicians, we need to especially TM iMADIPSHIT 😉
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Dave
The last one… shouldn’t that be myBeer?
This story is also carried by the BBC[1], which points out that Cisco has owned the trademark since 2000, and that Cisco brand Linksys released an internet phone called the iPhone just a couple of weeks ago.
Now anyone who’s tried to use the word “pod” in a product knows how fanatical Apple are about their trademarks. There’s no possible way that they could have missed this, and yet they went ahead with the launch. This means that
a) They’re willing to pay Cisco a lot of money for either ownership or licence of the trademark
b) They’re going to fight it in court, most probably by trying to argue all names of the form “iAnything” belong to Apple.
If it’s (a), it raises the question of why they didn’t do this prior to the announcement, to avoid all this unpleasant publicity.
If it’s (b), then that’s a very scary prospect indeed.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6250511.stm
It’s only scary if the judge sided with Apple. Otherwise it’s funny in that Apple is out of its mind.
I think it’s a. That still leads me to think Apple is out of its mind.
I’d like to know what Ciscos terms were.
a) They’re willing to pay Cisco a lot of money for either ownership or licence of the trademark
b) They’re going to fight it in court, most probably by trying to argue all names of the form “iAnything” belong to Apple.
If it’s (a), it raises the question of why they didn’t do this prior to the announcement, to avoid all this unpleasant publicity.
If it’s (b), then that’s a very scary prospect indeed.
My guess is that it’s (a). Although Apple should be very concerned bcause there’s no limit to how much Cisco could demand, I think that Apple is going to throw some big money at the problem and try to make it go away. Apple could always argue that it never intended to use “iPhone”; that it was merely a codeword for their product, not the eventual product name, if negotiations with Cisco fall apart. Just a guess.
b) They’re going to fight it in court, most probably by trying to argue all names of the form “iAnything” belong to Apple.
what about Novell, they have iFolder, iPrint, iManager, and the like… I don’t think you can patent or claim IP on a nomenclature system.
Or, it’s all planned by Apple and Cisco. Big hooplah, they settle, both companies get a lot of free advertising.
Mmm, black helicopters…
Or, it’s all planned by Apple and Cisco. Big hooplah, they settle, both companies get a lot of free advertising.
Or, Cisco releases a MP3 player named iPod.
Or, Cisco releases a MP3 player named iPod.
That would be priceless. If I worked at Cisco, I’d do it just for the fun of it.
Or, it’s all planned by Apple and Cisco. Big hooplah, they settle, both companies get a lot of free advertising.
Mmm, black helicopters…
Given that this news has negatively affected Apple’s share price (which anyone could have predicted), I think such action would probably be illegal. Not that Steve Jobs seems to care much about the legalities of share dealing, of course.
Also, it’s not like Apple need any more publicity for this thing: it was on the front of national newspapers here today, for goodness’ sake. And this doesn’t exactly make them look good.
Having thought about it, I think it’s most likely that they expected to be sued, and will try to use the court case to extract some reasonable licensing terms out of Cisco. I don’t know enough about US trademark law though to know whether a judge can force such a thing however.
Did you actually check the stock price?
Up around 15% since the iPhone announcement. Down less than 1% since the announcement that Cisco was suing.
The stock has been hardly affected at all by this news.
b) They’re going to fight it in court, most probably by trying to argue all names of the form “iAnything” belong to Apple.
the only problem is that ciscos iPhone-brand dates back 2 years before the first iMac
If someone copied the “i-Brand” it’s apple
the only problem is that ciscos iPhone-brand dates back 2 years before the first iMac
If someone copied the “i-Brand” it’s apple
Stop, reverse.
Cisco trademark is 2000, first iMac is 1998 (iMovie is 1999, iPod and iTunes are 2001, iPhoto 2002 — thanks, Wikipedia) and Cisco’s iPhone came out a few months ago, tops, so Apple could easily make a strong case that iThings are their brand.
Still, it doesn’t look great for Apple. From Steve Jobs’s own mouth, the iPhone had been in development for two and a half years, not seven, and Cisco got their allegedly intelligent phone out the door first.
infogear registered “iPhone” in 1996
cisco bought infogear in 2000
linksys announced their first iPhone in late 2005 when they teamed up with skype
the first iMac was released in 1998 (thats 2 years after 1996
)
don’t believe everything you find on wikipedia. most of the time it tells only half the truce
Edited 2007-01-11 03:36
Does it matter who did what when? Surely the issue is, has Apple actually tried to prohibit others using the expression iXXX on their products since 1998? If not, its going to be very difficult to argue that i-anything is an Apple trademark. Of course, if they have registered and enforced particular instances like ‘iBook’, ‘iTune’ those will be different.
“Stop, reverse.
Cisco trademark is 2000, first iMac is 1998 (iMovie is 1999, iPod and iTunes are 2001, iPhoto 2002 — thanks, Wikipedia) and Cisco’s iPhone came out a few months ago, tops, so Apple could easily make a strong case that iThings are their brand.”
Actually Infogear introduced the iPhone in 1997 and Cisco bought them out in 2000 acquiring the TM.
b) They’re going to fight it in court, most probably by trying to argue all names of the form “iAnything” belong to Apple.
You mean like “iDiot”?
Poor Cisco! They want a piece of a pie too, failing to produce anything people would want or even know about (re: their own iPhone).
Edited 2007-01-11 00:21
Poor Cisco! They want a piece of a pie too, failing to produce anything people would want or even know about (re: their own iPhone).
Did you read the article? Apple is the usurper here, not Cisco.
Cisco bought the trademark when it purchased InfoGear back in 2000. Since that time, Cisco has introduced products into the market under that name and, regardless of Apple’s ambitions, Cisco deserves protection by the court.
Obviously you have no idea what Cisco’s market is. Besides Linksys they do not at all market to consumers. They have absolutely no reason to market to non IT people like apple does.
Unless you are trying to say that Network Engineers are not people! In which case… I must say.. that huts man!
/*Poor Cisco! They want a piece of a pie too, failing to produce anything people would want or even know about (re: their own iPhone). */
cisco does produce things that peple want like their network hardware.
apple is the one that fails to produce stuff that people would want to buy, like their mac line, nobody buys those. apple always fails to take the market share away from MS when they release a new mac os x version.
Edited 2007-01-11 06:43
Apple isn’t after Microsoft they don’t want all the idiots that use windows and click on anything and doesn’t know anything else than to point and lick
And how do you know this?
Duh, because Apple’s goal as a publicly traded company isn’t to make money. They’d rather sell computers to 2% of the market rather than 96%. Stupid Microsoft… they don’t even know what to do with all their money. Apple likes to keep their accounting simple.
Apple doesn’t want to be Microsoft
That sound’s similar to an opinion, not supporting evidence.
/* cisco does produce things that peple want like their network hardware.
apple is the one that fails to produce stuff that people would want to buy, like their mac line, nobody buys those. apple always fails to take the market share away from MS when they release a new mac os x version. */
hey to whom ever modded me down it’s not my fault apple can’t sell their crappy macs. apple keeps adding new features to the mac os x, heck, they even made it more advanced then xp, but still very small margin of comsumers buys them. that is probably why jobs did not mention the macs at the show. why for? people still keep buying more PCs running windows
xp
Edited 2007-01-11 09:18
Yup, the iPod has a 0% market share and mac sales were down 100% last quarter. Macs are losing market share fast to xp. Mac market share is currently -234.123% and goinf further down.
FYI, Cisco is a much bigger company than Apple if measured in revenue: $28.48 billion USD vs. $19.3 billion USD. So, I guess they do produce something people would know about and want!
You know who Cisco is [ ]
Suppose you have some company ABC_1 and your company introduces some product called XYZ. Also your company now have registered the name XYZ. If some other company ABC_2 comes and takes the name XYZ and uses it for there own product. How would you feel? Don’t you become angry for using your product’s name?
Now that’s the case of Cisco here…
I’ve got to admit I didn’t see it coming, but only because I completely forgot about Cisco’s… whatever it is. I was laughing at the line “deliberately copying.” If anyone’s squatting someone else’s name, it’s the other way around, but the law probably won’t fall in line with the public consciousness on this one.
Just yesterday there was an article saying that Cisco sent an allowance agreement to Apple to sign it and be done with it. And now this!
Apple sues companies all the time for less than this, so I an not about to start feeling sorry for them.
Cisco legitimately owned the name and has a right to it. What if someone launched an MP3 player today and named it …iPod.
With that said, Apple has not yet released the product to production. Now that Apple has peoples attention they can name it what ever they want.
If Apple names it the iPod Phone, people will call it an iPhone anyway, and as long as that isn’t printed on the box, there is nothing people can do about it.
Apple probably didn’t get stupid over night.
“Apple probably didn’t get stupid over night.”
No, it took many many years. Lately they’ve been acting very uncharacteristic of themselves.
Sounds like something Nintendo did back during CES in 93/94. Day 1: Electronics manufacturer Sony announces a partnership with Nintendo to make a CD-capable SNES called… The PlayStation.
Night 1: Yamauchi (Ninty pres.) reads the terms of the agreement, and finds out Sony would get production rights to the media. Nintendo doesn’t like that, jumps a plane to Europe overnight
Day 2: Nintendo comes on stage, announces a CD-capable SNES called the 3DO with Phillips eV.
My guess is that Cisco wanted more than money (AirTunes, name on box, drop the AirPort, etc.)
Edit: the year is actually 89
Edited 2007-01-11 01:10
Philips released the CD-i. The 3DO was a completely separate console.
is more speculative than all of the rumors leading up to Mac World…
When all is said and done we know little more than we did yesterday morning. This is probably much ado propogated by the Apple spin machine. Talking about the name keeps us from asking real questions…what CPU?…what graphics chip?…will it accept 3rd party apps?…what has been cut out of OS X?…or pretty much anything else of any import
Maybe they don’t want the name?
I mean, if Linksys had the trademark for years and even released a phone called iPhone before they even announced theirs, it’s rather unlikely that the brand’s ownership would change hands.
On the other hand I can perfectly foresee Jobs on stage, for the release of the iP*** jokingly mentioning that they couldn’t use iPhone because it’s used by THAT crap made by linksys.
If Apple must change the name, they will have no alternative but to call it “iPod Phone”. You see, this is the only way to minimize the damage, as both words are recognizable by people who already heard of the “iPhone”.
If Cisco kills this, $10 says that Apple switches to one of iComm, iFone, or iRing.
Heh. iRing.
iFone probably wouldn’t be legal as thats pretty directly trying to confuse consumers. Cisco would get to file a second lawsuit against Apple for even more damages. That would be like me releasing an operating system called Windoze.
Of course, Cisco wants a piece of the pie. They had the name a long time ago but nobody cared about it. Suddenly knowing that Apple was going to release their phones a some point very soon, they release their IPhone.
I still believe that Apple will change the name to something else before release and basically leave Cisco in the dust.
I am not saying Apple was not asking for it but for goodness sake, the product is not even shipping yet.
I’d give em the name… With a catch… I’d get a license for FairPlay DRM, for use on my new line of Linksys Digital Media Recievers with the logo stating “iTunes Ready” right on the box.
Creative should have done that when they won the iPod interface from the patent office.
and let go of the fisher price naming scheme.
Couldn’t they try to come up with an original name in 2 years of making this phone?
Most likely, they reckon brand recognition trumps originality in naming, which is understandable.
There’s nothing Fisher Price about it. It’s simple brand recognition.
More important than an original name, just for the sake of it.
The “Apple TS2250 mobile phone” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Edited 2007-01-11 17:08
They tried, but “Zune” was already taken.
That’s big business for you, break out the lawyers when negotiations get tough. Maybe they can use iMove, iMobile, iMobility, iTalk, iConnect or iCommunicate if they don’t get their iPhone trademark? Kind of strange for Apple to limit themselves to “phone” when it’s supposed to be doing a lot lot more…
Hmmmm let me see they already have iPod, iTunes, iMac, iChat, in their portfolio and Cisco obviously snapped up iPhone to try and block them from using it.. iPhone goes with the rest of Apple’s branding not the other way around so who should be taking who to court
Well fortunately for the rest of the sane world they don’t give trademarks for i*. There are no wildcards in trademarks. Cisco legitimately had this one and released a product called iPhone before Apple’s was even being concieved. As much as it may hurt the Apple fanboys, Apple is wrong on this one.
“Hmmmm let me see they already have iPod, iTunes, iMac, iChat, in their portfolio…”
Which were all revealed and released after the iPhone trademark was registered (in 1996).
The iPhone trademark is 11 years old
Apple does not own ‘iPhone’. If they really did not want to get sued they would have either choosen a different name (they had plenty of time, seven years!), or bought ‘iPhone’ before announcing it. Apple *really* want it and Cisco knew it.
Cisco was obviously waiting to see the reaction of the announcment, and when they saw how positive it was the price went up. Suing is necessary to legally protect their trademark . It also has the benefit of putting pressure on Apple to get a deal done. They make a lot more money on the deal too.
Well played Cisco.
Edited 2007-01-11 05:42
Seriously, when Microsoft managed to “win” the case vs Lindows, because of their use of the generic, non-copyrightable term “windows”, I see no reason why Apple can’t argue that they “own” the rights to use any and all iThis- and iThat-names. It makes just as much sense.
iCall
sounds good to me and is easier to speak than iMobile.
Btw: didn’t Jobs say in the presentation “Boy did we patent it”?
The first sue for Apple Inc. =)
I hope Apple is going to be beaten up badly. They’ve done this to many other companies and individuals, and now it is time for a little revenge.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Cisco!
I don’t get it, beforet this Cisco issued this official comment:
“Given Apple’s numerous requests for permission to use Cisco’s iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statement that were distributed to them last night and that addressed a few remaining items. We expect to receive a signed agreement today.”
…and now this? I guess they want a share of the cake. I mean come on, who is really going to benefit from the name iPhone more? Who wants the Cisco/Linksys iPhone? And why didn’t they try to recover iPhone.org domain from Apple?
Anyway Apple’s iPhone isn’t available for pre-order, much less being sold, yet. This naming issue will be worked out before that.
And there are so many options out there: iPod Phone, iPod Mobile, MacPhone, AppleTalk (haha), iChat Mobile, iMobile, iTalk… 🙂
Edited 2007-01-11 09:06
I kinda wish that they’d called their other major product release: iTV. Then we could have watched the legal sparks fly
C’mon. Are you clowns so naive to belive Apple doesn’t know the history of the iPhone trademark? There’s more to it than meets the eye and they obviously know something that we don’t.
How bad is this going to damage Apple or the iPhone’s success. Not a scratch. No such thing as bad publicity.
Edited 2007-01-11 17:14
iPwn3d.
They should just switch the name to iPwn (speak: I own) 🙂
http://blogs.cisco.com/news/2007/01/update_on_ciscos_iphone_tradem…. Via Digg
New interesting bits.
Couldn’t Apple change the name to EyePhone?
One way to look at this is that Apple chose the name iPhone to get attention and instant brand recognition. If they had to change the name, they’ve already got the public’s attention and most people wouldn’t find it too difficult following the product to the new name.
Or they’re just going to fight it in courts or pay a wedge of money – the potential revenue from the iPhone is big methinks.
Did anyone notice the phone doesn’t seem to have the name on it.
I saw the Cingular logo on it, but no iPhone. So maybe this is just to play around with Cisco, get a bit of controversy, then quietly change the name. I mean everyone knows about this phone now.
Heck they could call it “PowerPhone”, and in two years time everyone will be appending “Power” to the names of their products. I mean, the iName thingy is distinctively Apple. Everyone and their grandmother knows that.
Just call it the MacPhone Apple. There you have it, anyone taking bets on the final name.
Edited 2007-01-11 20:46
…suck sh&t Jobs. Idiots.
now this is funny and was really bound to happen. Can’t believe the Apple layers didn’t research this one …