iPhone news

Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking, has sued Apple Inc., in San Francisco federal court on Wednesday, 10 January 2007, for Trademark Infringement for the later’s new mobile product, iPhone. ‘iPhone’ has been a registered trademark of Cisco’s voice-over-internet services by Linksys, a division of Cisco. Cisco had obtained iPhone trademark after its acquisition of Infogear in 2000. Infogear had possessed the trademark ‘iPhone’ in March 20, 1996.

With its lawsuit, Cisco is seeking the immediate relief to prevent Apple from using its trademark. It had also showed interest for negotiations with Apple Inc., offering a solution to Apple to use the trademark with Cisco’s legal permission. According to Cisco, Apple had approached them many years ago, seeking the permission to use the name, and the two companies were in the process of negotiation. But on Tuesday, 9th January 2007, Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, introduced the iPhone at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo, and this announcement literally stirred Cisco to file a suit against them putting a veil to further negotiations on this matter.

However, Apple Inc. defies Cisco’s arguments stating that Apple is entitled to use the trademark as their product is materially different from that of Cisco. Apple’s spokeswoman Natalie Kerris termed Cisco’s move as ‘silly’ and mentioned that Apple is the first company to use the name iPhone for a cell phone, while many other companies have been using the same trademark for products which are quite similar to that of Cisco’s which use the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Industry experts feel the trademark issue is more than just an ‘image struggle’. As cellular technology and Internet technology are witnessing a revolutionary convergence, the possibility of both the companies reviewing their current products and coming up with exactly similar products cannot be ruled out.

Erik Suppiger, a networking specialist at Pacific Growth Equities, envisaged the possibility of Cisco adding innovative cellular functions to its existing iPhone, adding more memory and functions and thus overlapping with Apple iPhone at one point in the future.  Cisco’s rigorous acquisitions in the past one year and CEO John Chambers’ ambition to conquer the market with more consumer electronic products go hand-in-hand with Suppiger’s prediction and magnifies the intensity of the legal battle.

According to Financial analyst Jonathan Hoopes, who conducts research on various companies including Apple in ThinkEquity Partners LLC, NewYork, this infringement is a planned strategy from the Apple house just before the launch of the iPhone; and by not settling the issue with Cisco, they have caught the headlines of the business dailies and got a bigger hit in the minds of their customers. According to him, there is a possibility that Apple concede to Cisco for using the name iPhone for their IP telephone handset after the market gossips fall back to normal and re-christen its product or may just drop the ‘i’ before it making it read ‘Apple Phone.’ Apple Inc., which has the habit of changing the names of its products very comfortably, may not find the latest option difficult to accept.