What's a name worth? Looks like Cisco and Apple will spend millions of dollars in a high-stakes battle to find out -- and the winner will walk away with the rights to the coveted name "iPhone."
In a lawsuit filed last Wednesday, Cisco asked a judge to forbid Apple from using the name "iPhone," a Cisco trademark since 2000. The case hinges (mostly) on whether Apple's new phone could confuse shoppers looking to buy Cisco's iPhones, which is a Linksys product line. Patent and trademark attorneys seem to think that Cisco will likely win IF the case goes to court. Who knows. I have to believe that Apple is smarter that that. Or are they?
An investigation has shown that Cisco lied on its trademark registration for the iPhone. It has not been producing or marketting a product called iPhone in the 6 years it had the trademark. And it lied about this in it's registration in 2006, using a faked package with an "iPhone" sticker on it. Use it or lose it in regard to trademarks. Cisco did not and is too late. It will lose the trademark registration to Apple.
Cisco also is about to lose the iPhone trademark in Europe to Apple also since it has not been producing or using the iPhone trademark in the past 5 years as required by European law - which was designed to prevent people from sitting on trademark names like Cisco has done.
Posted by: James Katt | January 14, 2007 at 03:49 PM