Cisco Sues Apple Over iPhone

[Aaron]

For those who are ticked at Apple for having a pricey iPhone, maybe this should give you a good laugh or two.
Cisco Sues Apple over iPhone
The Cisco lawsuit over illegal use of iPhone name follows the long history of similar suits against Apple over copyright infringement.

Apple's much-anticipated iPhone, unveiled this week after 30 months and millions of dollars in top-secret development, could end up costing the company a lot more.

Cisco is suing apple in a bid to stop Apple from using the name "iPhone," which Cisco has held a trademark on since 2000 and used to brand a line of its own Internet-enabled phones that began shipping last spring and officially launched three weeks ago.

Shares of Apple fell $1.49, or 1.5 percent, to $95.51 in Thursday morning trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market after the news surfaced.

At the same time, Cisco stock gained 17 cents, to $28.85, on the same exchange.

Cisco said Apple approached the company several years ago seeking to use the name, and the two companies were negotiating ever since to reach a licensing agreement.

Cisco said the talks ended up abruptly just hours before Apple's chief executive, Steve Jobs, introduced iPhone multimedia device at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo in Las Vegas.

When the iPhone was revealed to the world, Cisco had given Apple lawyers until the end of the business day to finalize the contract. When no progress was made, Cisco filed the lawsuit Wednesday seeking injunctive relief to prevent Apple from using Cisco's iPhone trademark.

Apple argues it's entitled to use the name iPhone because the products are materially different. Apple's iPhone is a touch-screen-controlled cell phone device that plays music, surfs the Web and delivers voicemail and e-mail. Cisco's iPhone is Internet-enabled. What a dramatic difference!

Nevertheless, Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris called Cisco's lawsuit "silly."

"We believe that Cisco's U.S. trademark registration is tenuous at best," she said. "Apple's the first company to use the iPhone name for a cell phone. And if Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we're very confident we will prevail."

Cisco executives argue that, despite the current dissimilarities between the Cisco and Apple iPhone, both phones are functionally the same - they are phones.

It's not the first time Apple is being sued over the trademark issues. In 2005, Apple has been slapped with a lawsuit by Tiger Direct Inc. for allegedly infringing its trademark with the new Mac OS X Tiger operating system.

In 2003, Tibco alleged that Apple's Rendezvous networking software, used in Apple products such as the iTunes music service, infringes on Tibco's Rendezvous name. Same year, Apple was sued by The Open Group, the San Francisco company that claims ownership of the Unix trademark, for using the term Unix in conjunction with its Mac OS X operating system without a license.

And most famously, Apple Corps, the corporate face of rock icons The Beatles, has sued Apple Computer over its iTunes service. Apple Corps, the company The Beatles formed in 1968 to manage its business interests, claimed that the computer company was illegally using the band's name and logo to sell music-related products, such as digital music software.

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[ZephyReaver]

Anyway,

there are many more i-stuff that apple can't use such as

iriver, irobot, ininja, imode,

looks like many rivals took the i-names lol

[J-xToF]

Did apple win or lose its previous cases?

or those who ticked at Apple for having a pricey iPhone, maybe this should give you a good laugh or two.

:D

[weird_macaroni]

LOL they got sued so many times... but i really want the iphone or whatever its called now

[disarraytiger]

this is just dumb, because apple could of just avoided this by just finishing the agreement -_-

[Isophaller]

now that's hilarious i dun think it is THAT hard to have changed the name to iPh0ne or iPhonez or sumthin like that...

[Lazypenguin]

how about icell? icellphone?

[xxmnmxx]

freakin hilarious

[walawalawala]

but there is a 'Cisco iPhone', and an 'Apple iPhone.'

cant they just make the friggin' distinction?

i think they just are riding into Apple's fame.

[snipa120]

Thats pretty crappy lol
They just want to screw apple over because apple didnt finish the agreement
someone is just mad and wanting revenge...