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Cisco VP Explains Lawsuit Against Apple
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 12, 2007 12:52 PM
from the all-very-rational dept.
from the all-very-rational dept.
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.
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Cisco Sues Apple Over iPhone Trademark 556 comments
lucabrasi999 writes "It appears that Apple may be running out of items that they can prefix with the letter "i". Cisco is suing Apple over trademark infringement. Cisco claims to own the rights to the "iPhone" trademark since they purchased Infogear in 2000. Infogear filed for the rights to the trademark in 1996."
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Find a better name (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Find a better name (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Find a better name (Score:4, Funny)
It's a joke people
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MOD UP: Mod points going to Mac users today? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I can see how language like "fisher price type naming" and the rhetorical question at the end could be seen as flamebait, but only for zealots. This post concisely (if somewhat cruelly) makes many excellent points.
The fact is, "iPhone" is not nearly as original as even "iPod." It's not just that putting "i" in front of things is only creative to a point, "iPod" is clearly more original and creative than "iMusicPlayer" or "iMP3" or "iSong" because "Pod" doesn't immediately inspire music.
Which is not to say that "iPhone" isn't a valuable name, but Apple is an artistic company, and until recently they were largely a "we don't play dirty like Redmond" company. Sure, corporate tactics are rarely what you'd call "kind," and Apple has had their fair share of lawsuits, but their use of iPhone after literally years of failed negotiations with Cisco is flat-out brazen disregard. It is the sort of petulant "but we're so much cooler than Cisco" that I might expect from Microsoft, but never from Apple. Even their teflon veneer and Jobs' reality-distortion field aren't enough to make them look like the good guys on this one.
Apple could, I believe, easily have come up with an alternative name. I believe it well within their creative capacity. They came up with "iPod," after all, and their use of the word "pod" has proven an extremely strong trademark in the audio realm, for many legal reasons I won't go into here. They could do the same with their new phone, but they've chosen instead to select the predictable and arguably generic name "iPhone" despite obvious legal issues.
The only question I have is whether Apple's legal department is doing shoddy work, or Jobs just disregarded the legal advice they provided to him?
Anyhow, if I still had mod points I would mod parent up, despite the tone. Apple screwed up, and went against much of the good precedent they've been setting for themselves. They can do better.
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Why not "iPod Phone"? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:MOD UP: Mod points going to Mac users today? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Cringely's opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Robert X. Cringely talks about this in his weekly post today [pbs.org]. 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.
Re:Cringely's opinion (Score:5, Funny)
So soon I can tell all those mac fanbois to get aLife?
Laugh, it's funny.
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Re:Cringely's opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why geeks don't predict successes like the iPod. Sorry to pick on you, but you're just the last person to mention this.
The reason people subscribe to cellphone service is they want a phone that "just works". The number one complaint of users of mobile phone services is not that it's too expensive, it's that there are blackspots, and/or dropped calls. In the US, most plans are effectively unlimited - you're given unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited in-network calls, and a huge bucket of minutes to use for everything else, that you're never likely to use up. People might complain it's $50 rather than $25, but that's the cost anyway, regardless of how you try to work around it.
Even if we graft Skype onto cellphones, you're losing the "just works" aspect of it. Calls are dropped if you go out of range, so no walking around any great distances while using your Skype phone. Not unless you plan to subscribe to an unlimited data plan, and then... what are you using Skype for? Where's the cost benefit?
Mobile operators, in any case, are fixing the issues so you wouldn't have any advantage from such a system anyway. In particular, GSM operators are adopting GAN/UMA [wikipedia.org], which seamlessly causes the upper level GSM protocols to route themselves over 802.11 if there's a WLAN in range. So no dropped calls. While some operators may charge the earth for this, most are likely to simply drop airtime charges for calls routed this way. That's what T-Mobile USA is proposing, for instance.
The phone that doesn't work when you go out of range of a microcell was tried in the early nineties anyway. The technology CT2 [wikipedia.org] was designed for that purpose. It was a flop. People didn't want it, even if it was cheaper than cellular. What they wanted was a phone that works everywhere. That works the same way everywhere.
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Re:Cringely's opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
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what were they thinking (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:what were they thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:what were they thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason that is significant is that Cisco hasn't defended its trademark [comwave.net] in the past. There are several products named iPhone out there. Couple that with the fact that Cisco hasn't used the iPhone name since they purchased it in 2000 and it seems they may be in some legal trouble.
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The truth about Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:The truth about Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
You are correct.
But! Apple's products are simple and easy to use. They do what they're designed for. And they are elegant. In a lot of cases a Mac is the right tool for the job. It does, however, frighten me how quickly the 'geek community' has gotten onboard with Apple. Steve Jobs is the best salesman in the world. He sold the smartest community (geeks, by definition) on their biggest enemy (closed everything), and made them love what he's doing. Rather appalling if you ask me.
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Re:The truth about Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, Close sourse isn't the 'enemy' of geeks. Almost everything Geek enjoy is closed in some manner. DOn't believe me? DO a spiderman comic* and see how fast you get closed down.
Many geeks use windows; which is less open, and not as powerfull as OSX.
Apple makes toys that make geeks wet their pants.
*or any number of things, I chose comics as an example.
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Not patents (Score:5, Informative)
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. [wikipedia.org]
Some thoughts on strategy and the endgame (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [out-law.com] 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$
Cisco's possible trademark problems (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Renamed? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:macfanboys are so toast! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:"surprised and disappointed" (Score:5, Insightful)
They have a full decade of an active product with the name before Apple's announcement. This wasn't some Cisco ambush.
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Re:"surprised and disappointed" (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if the negotiations were "fair", Cisco still had the legal right to release the product under the iPhone name, whereas Apple does not.
-dave
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RTFA. (Score:4, Insightful)
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