Cisco Lost Rights to iPhone Trademark Last Year? 162
An anonymous reader writes "An investigation into the ongoing trademark dispute between Cisco and Apple over the name "iPhone" appears to show that Cisco does not own the mark as claimed in their recent lawsuit. This is based on publicly available information from the US Patent and Trademark office, as well as public reviews of Cisco products over the past year. The trademark was apparently abandoned in late 2005/early 2006 because Cisco was not using it."
Old News (Score:5, Funny)
--Steve
Re:Old News (Score:5, Interesting)
umm (Score:2)
He's not a fan boy, but not a lawyer either (Score:3, Informative)
Re:He's not a fan boy, but not a lawyer either (Score:5, Informative)
The issue here is whether or not their registration can be revoked due to failure to use the trademark. The article mentions that a registered trademark should be in continual use throughout the registration. As Cisco had no "iPhone" product until late in the grace period there seems to be a good case for the registration to be revoked.
Now, as you say they may still be protected, but this opens the door still for Apple to register the trademark. I can hardly think that Cisco will be able to defend a trademark that was revoked against someone else who holds the registration.
TM vs. R (Score:4, Informative)
I guess that goes to show... (Score:1)
I love happy endings.
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simple solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:simple solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:simple solution (Score:4, Funny)
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THE SEVENTIES MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN AGAIN!
I'm afraid that you're pretty much doomed unless you take the cyanide-coated exit. Only 63 more years to go.
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To paraphrase: "Those who remember the seventies... mostly lie about their age."
Too Late Buddy (Score:5, Funny)
2. National obsession with dance at the expense of expanded consciousness - Check.
3. Horrific fashion - Check.
4. Youth culture co-opted by advertising - Check.
5. Government stomping all over personal liberty - Check.
Sorry, dude, you're too late. The Seventies are back in force.
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Those Little Details (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Those Little Details (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Those Little Details (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. If TFA is right, this has nothing to do with 'little details'. The big details are that Cisco had no product called 'iPhone' for years, and recently just stuck a sticker on a picture of an existing product, rebranding it 'iPhone', when renewing the trademark, when no such branding existed in the real world.
Re:Those Little Details (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe that you and TFA are right, Cisco has not used the trademark in marketing their VOIP web/phone system. I'm looking at the box from one (ca. 2002) right now, and it is branded "Cisco IP Phone". Nowhere in the box, on the product or in the manual was it referred to as an "iPhone", "IPhone", "I Phone" or "I-Phone".
For that matter, I've seen the instruments placed on TV shows (e.g. "West Wing") and never seen any "iPhone" branding you would expect for a product placement on TV. Looks like they registered it and blew it off.
Re:Those Little Details (Score:5, Interesting)
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Oh, really?
Where can I get one?
Thought so...
What I don't understand is why another company would be the "next in line" to use a trademark. I thought it was basically first come first serve. If Cisco had it registered, and now they are the first to actually ship an "iPhone", why does anyone else have a claim to it? I could understand it if Cisco let it lapse, then Apple beat them to releasing an iPhone, but that's not
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I thought it was basically first come first serve.
You're thinking of patents. Trademarks exist for the sole purpose of preventing companies from causing confusion to consumers by branding a product in such a way that it misleads consumers into thinking it is from another company. You can lose trademarks in any number of ways including not using them or if the public does not associate that trademark with your product. For example, you invent a new gadget and call it the "grubblepoo." You trademark that n
You're missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Score one for the fruit company...
Simon.
In Europe too! (Score:5, Informative)
Cisco on brink of losing iPhone name in Europe [theregister.co.uk]
I had to read TFA twice just to be sure that it was actually about the trademark in the US, not Europe.
This is definitely turning out to be a crazy situation. I agree with TFA that this is probably why Apple didn't sign the contract with Cisco after all.
But Cisco has an iPhone already? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=3
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It's the proverbial "too little, too late." They released the iPhone only a month or so before they knew Apple was planning on announcing their iPhone, and didn't even do a good job about it (ie, stickers reading "iPhone" on existing product packaging).
The trademark was registered in 1999, and they only just started using it. Anyone with common sense can see it's because they knew Apple wanted it, and they thought they could squeeze a bit of cash out of them. Let's hope (for Apple's sake) that the judge h
You Know What This Proves? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is yet another flagrant incursion into history and unforgivable mussing of the timeline by Steve Jobs, a monster whose rampage will never end until our hard-working scientists develop a weapon that can pierce his infamous Reality Distortion Field. Myself, I suggest realigning the Bussard collectors to emit anti-neutrinos.
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Pity (Score:2)
USPTO website (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:USPTO website (Score:5, Informative)
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Cheers.
I though they were getting along ok.. (Score:1)
From Engadget:
it all just a plot to .... (Score:2)
So that's it! (Score:4, Funny)
If this checks out, Youch! Everyone was wondering what was behind Apple so brazenly using the iPhone trademark. Cringely wrote a whole piece on it http://pbs.org/cringely [pbs.org] but no one guessed something as simple as this!
Memo to self: Don't play Poker with Steve Jobs.
zdnet article quotes /.er.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:zdnet article quotes /.er.... (offtopic) (Score:2)
when I read your post my immediate digg-like fanboy reaction was to say, "For shame! Who is Jay Behmke that he can steal quotes from the web and use it as his own?!"
Then I look a look at the /. poster's ID number:
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by jmbehmke1 (1050394) Alter Relationship on Friday January 12, @02:23PM (#17578608)
oh.
Then I proceeded to wipe the egg that was on my face. The internet has made me a little too on edge. :-(
Maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
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My money is on Apple winning this one. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the words of bugs bunny: How now brown cow?
The fickle commentaries crack me up. First it was WTF was Apple thinking? Then it was Cisco is in the right, Apple is wrong / evil / brazen. How stupid could they be. They're gonna have to rename it to @Phone. Blah blah blah.
Did anyone honestly think Apple would name their product the iPhone, full well knowing that Cisco had the trademark unless they were completely confident that it was both A) worth the legal headache and B) that they have a very good case and therefor chance of triumphing in this dispute?
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Seems to me that... (Score:2)
Sort of like the old saying, "I don't care what you print about me
Featured iPhone (Score:3, Informative)
iPhone is now a featured product [cisco.com] on Cisco's Website. I don't know if it was there before the iPhone was announced or before this trademark non-usage news came out, but surely it's related with Apple's iPhone.
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The "Linksys WIP320 Linksys Wireless-G Skype iPhone" has two pictures. One full frontal picture and one in perspective. The full frontal one has iPhone in the middle but the perspective doesn't.
Probably because it was too hard for them to put the iphone logo on that one.
Re:Featured iPhone (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-images/by-autho
This is a customer uploaded image uploaded by one "Ben Boyle" on December 18, 2006. The main product image has no such iPhone shown:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000JI5L0
Sheesh. Linksys' own "purchase these items" link (Score:2)
http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Promo tion_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=116563331864 0&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper [linksys.com]
The above page at Linksys has links at "where to buy" for Amazon... None of the nine products that come up use the word iPhone! So, Cisco is pimping their minion Linksys, and Linksys is pimping their "iPhone", but they aren't selling a product that has "iPhone" anywhere in its name and doesn't appear on any o
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To this one here: http://www.voipsupply.com/product_info.php?product s_id=2248 [voipsupply.com]
Again, Photoshopped or actual product photograph, anyone own one? It seems if nothing else that Voipsupply is more responsive to Cisco's product photo updates. I wonder why Amazon couldn't be bothered to play ball.
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Unfortunately, the image right beside it [images-amazon.com] (a view of the phone from directly in front) does actually have the iPhone moniker above the keypad.
Interestingly, if you HEAD that image it was last modified on 19-Dec-2006:
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Yes, it's true, I'm a dumbass for not properly reading your post. *slaps head*
The actual Linksys iPhone page [amazon.com] on Amazon has two product images on it:
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http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cisco.com [archive.org]
has a nice listing of previous cisco home pages. I browsed through this quite a bit, and it looked like they were using the term "communicator" extensively. I didn't see iPhone on any of these historical pages. I'm inclined to think they just might have made "iPhone" a new, featured product in the last 72 hours.
Interestingly, I did
Somebody need to go to jail (Score:3, Insightful)
Cisco files Delcaration of Use, with "under penalty of perjury" affidavit stating they are using the name.
Now it sounds like everything will hinge on the following:
AT a former FA:
2001 - 2006: Cisco continues servicing and providing technical support for the iPhone
So internal documentation may/probably shows continuous use of iPhone in regards to the support of an existing product.
Either
(A) the trademark is shown to be valid, as internal documents support the continued use of the trademark for support purposes OR
(B) they don't have the documentation, or it is deemed invalid, in which case whomever signed the extension is clearly guilty of perjury and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
In my opinion, you can't have it both ways - the tradmark is valid and the signer is ok, or the trademark is invalid and the signer goes to jail. There is no middle ground.
Now, in other thoughts on the matter:
(1) If the trademark is up for grabs, and Cisco has an iPhone product on the market which pre-dates the Apple cellular product, don't they still have "dibs" on the name? Can't they re-file for the trademark, and presumably be first in line because of an actual shipping product?
(2) Can Chevy come out with their new "Fairlane" model next year, since Ford clearly is not producing a Fairlane and haven't for more than 7 years? If Ford claims to keep it by offering parts and service for the Fairlane, wouldn't that bolster the case For Cisco, which has supported "their" iPhone product with (at least) service for the last 6 years?
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You are confusing this a bit with Patent and/or Copyright. A registered trademark gives you the assumption that the mark is properly yours and trumps all other marks. Without a registered trademark, you have to *prove* to a c
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On the surface, it seems pretty simple.
Company A buys company which produces the RealWidget.
Company A registers the trademark.
Company A supports said xWidget and reaffirms trademark, and affirmation is accepted.
Company B has rumors of a widget coming to market
Company B has a fantasically popular RealGidget in production
Company A comes out with new xWidget product last month - they'll call it the updated version of the old RealWidget.
Company
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That's what counts in trademark law.
Cisco has made no effort to build up any brand around the iPhone trademark. There's a product that came out a couple of weeks ago after the registration was expired. Thats it.
If they were serious about building a brand image, anybody who referred to an apple iPhone in the press should have received a letter from Cisco's lawyers explaining that iPhone i
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Basically, this trademark has been sitting in a file cabinet gathering dust ever since it was claimed. They've never actually used it on a product until now.
USPTO (Score:2)
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Why aPhone? (Score:5, Funny)
-BA
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Why is Apple "The good guys" ?? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Did I fall asleep and miss something ?
Why is Apple, the world's largest DRM company which loves to use it's lawyers to crush and close any blog which mentions it's upcoming product, now suddenly the "good guys" ?
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It still makes me cringe when someone says "Vista is crippled with DRM" when you can't even boot OSX on a computer that Apple didn't make. Not to mention FairPlay, which I was told doesn't count as DRM because "you can remove it easily".
Here's proof of continuous use by Cisco (Score:5, Informative)
This is just some bloggers, not a legal opinion, even if it's from a lawyer.
Here's a demonstration that Cisco was continuously using the trademark: the support web site for the iPhone [archive.org], as archived at archive.org. "With InfoGear recently being acquired by Cisco Systems, there is currently no change to your iPhone coverage. We hope you continue to enjoy using your iPhone, and we thank you for your business. So, even if Cisco wasn't selling new units, they were still supporting the old ones. That page has been archived every year since 2000, so that's a form of continuous use.
There's an active user base. The University of Florida went iPhone [ufl.edu]. There's a description of their configuration here. [ufl.edu] They have a VoIP infrastructure with three Cisco CallManagers, two Cisco 6608 VoIP gateways, a Cisco Unity voice mail system, and many Cisco IP telephones, some of which are iPhone units, on desktops. The University of Pennsylvania also went iPhone. [upenn.edu] There are probably corporate installations too, but they tend not to publish their phone instructions on the public web. Those installations have to be supported, which is something Cisco does, and gets paid for. Cisco is in the network infrastructure business, after all.
As long as there's support, and support-related revenue, the trademark is clearly in use.
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Re:Here's proof of continuous use by Cisco (Score:5, Informative)
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Seems iffy. After all, lots of places offer Linux support, but that does not give them rights to the name Linux. The mere mention of the mark iPhone in describing the service is not the same as using it as the name of a product or service. This is like the difference between an automobile company selling Fords and a garage advertising that they fix Fords.
When the mark is registered, the product also has to be specified. The orig
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University of Florida [ufl.edu] refers to an IPhone service (note the capitalization), not an iPhone product. In fact, most of the time Florida refers to its VoIP service as I-Phone (note the capitalization and dash):
I-Phone is a new solutions-offering presented by OIT-Telecom that takes ad
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Sorry, not buying this one: the linked Quick Reference Guides for the phones all use "Cisco IP Phone" when describing their products. Not that UoF is an authoritive source but they also use "IPhone" instead of "iPhone" when describing them, with one other reference to "I-Phone".
product name such news? (Score:1)
ok, i'm a begrudgingly admitted macboi, and *i'm* tired of hearing about the iphone debate. it's like arguing the existence of god (or something) -- what does it matter?
mr c
This would explain a lot (Score:1)
If it's true, then you can see why trademarks lapse if not used or enforced. Why, otherwise, companies could buy up a bunch of trademarks, or think up obvious ones, and sue in perpetuity. Not that that's what's happening here, of course. Kaff, kaff.
Cisco has a good reputation for quality on the corporate (premium) market, and they also are worshipped by a
Cisco does not own the mark as claimed (Score:2)
How does iphone.org impact this dispute? (Score:2)
The other question I have is whether or not an invalidity of the trademark registration necessarily
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Go back to the PURPOSE of Trademarks (Score:2)
Continuous Use (Score:1)
They did not use the mark continuously. So, no go Cisco.
IANAL (Score:2, Interesting)
Some other thing as well about the use of the trademark where Cisco submitted box art for an up
I'm reminded of Certain other heated (Score:2)
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Apple - Sued by Apple records
Unix - Sued by Open Group
iPhone - Sued by Cisco
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iDiot
Err: 1D10T
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Because the youngins would start to wonder what an Intosh is.
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Would that make it an iBeowulf Cluster, or a Beowulf iCluster? Damn, I'm so confused! Who do we sue next?
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I own a Treo 650. It's not even close to what the iPhone is doing interface-wise. I also own a P990, which is about as far from the iPhone (or from the Treo, for that matter) as Windows 3.11 is from Mac OS X.
Re:I dunno... (Score:4, Interesting)
I certainly do hope to see the iPhone become a better platform for third party apps eventually, but even with nothing else, I can see ditching my Treo when it comes out. And I'm hoping that the few third party apps I do use on the Treo do make their way to the iPhone, one way or the other..... would love to have Salling Clicker on it, for example.
Actually, the other big thing I use my Treo for is as a host for TomTom navigator, but I could probably see giving that up to and just getting a physical TomTom device instead.
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Opera Mini [operamini.com] is your friend.
The Treo does more. The iPhone does it better. (Score:2)
Okay, that's not what I said. Read what I wrote: "It's not even close to what the iPhone is doing interface-wise". The Treo probably has more features than the iPhone. It does just about everything the iPhone does, and more. The iPhone isn't interesting because of its feature set, but because of the interface which finally seems to put everything together in a way that doesn't feel like it was assembled using duct tape.
I mean, the Tr
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in case you didn't notice, the parent was asking about japanese technology that is so advanced that it beats out the current stock here in america and you tell us to look at the current stock that's here in america? well, you've got me beat...
of course, we're arguing over the merits of a product that does not yet exist on the market yet... this is like saying how much better halo 3 is than gears of war. i'm sure it will be be
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Even close? Sure, I'd be delighted:
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/01/11/iphone-an d-lg-ke850-separated-at-birth/ [engadgetmobile.com]
The url alone says it all - there's hardly even any need to click it. I think my point (although clearly not one grasped by the aforementioned fanboys who modded me a troll) is that it just beggars belief that someone can stand in front of an audience (al
Re:I dunno... (Score:5, Informative)
The trademark laws are fair here. Sticking a label onto shrinkwrap is not a) showing use for the past 5 years CONTINUOUSLY as the law requires, b) shows any evidence this was "use" of a trademark. Use being something the public saw when purchasing the product; they didn't.
Indeed, it seems misleading, even fraudulent, what Cisco did; they pretended that this was evidence of continuous use, public use? Please. I never heard of iphone until December and I've been looking at VOIP gear off and on for the past 6 months.
Fanboys? Sure. I used to be a Mac fanboy, back in the 68k and early PPC days. No longer. I (horrible, I know) like XP more than I like MacOS, although I dislike MS more than Apple. I have no plans to buy the crippled Apple phone/iphone either, unless Cingular has some whopping cheap plans (like $60 a month for 1000+ minutes and unlimited EDGE).
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Oh wait, you mean Firemen, not Fremen. I was kinda wondering how do laws apply to fictional nomadic people living on a desert planet.
Re:I dunno... (Score:5, Informative)
IMHO Cisco fumbled badly, and they're desperately trying to recover.
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Expect a letter from Apple's lawyers over your unauthorized use of their trademarks "iSuggest" and "iIn".