Cisco VP Explains Lawsuit Against Apple 303
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.
Renamed? (Score:1, Interesting)
I think people are going to keep calling it iPhone anyway, though.
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.
Re:Cringely's opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, even though when they first announced it they claimed iTV was only a code name. It couldn't be because of the numerous other [wikipedia.org] products or services already called iTV. I doubt Apple "backed-off" from the iTV name just to appease El Gato. iTV was always a code name, NOT a product name.
I certainly fail to see the dilution of the iThis and iThat crap - iPod, iLife, iChat, iWork, iTunes - if they actually WERE trying to play down the iBlah naming, why the hell would they even consider calling their new product the iPhone?
You know, I used to think Cringley wasn't all that bad - the past year or so though he seems to be just another blowhard, almost in the same league as John Dvorak.
As for the lawsuit, I actually hope Apple loses - iPhone is a stupid name, IMHO. Apple Phone or even iPod Phone would be better names.
And when are we going to see a plain old iPod based on this fancy new tech? Drop the phone, keep the wireless and PDA functions, slap an 80gb hard drive on it, and you'd print money with the thing.
Has the rebranding started? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure this gif [apple.com] has changed since the keynote.
MacPhone (Score:2, Interesting)
As the phone is basically a Mac OS X machine (if that is correct information) I would have expected they would call it the MacPhone.
From this point of view it would be unlikely to be called the Apple Phone. MacPhone also sound nicer.
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
Re:Cringely's opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Amusingly enough, once you install Skype on a little device like that, and go to Starbucks, your device no longer needs that silly old cell-phone provider. Sure, it's not that reliable, because you can't get wifi everywhere, but if you want to find an iPod killer, there it is. Apple's too big to gamble it all on a completely open device like that. If a small company just built it, and damned the torpedoes, (the MPAA would have fits for the next decade) they could sell millions of them.
It's coming, but it's not going to come from big corporate because that would entail too much of a fight. Yet another reason for me to despise large companies - they won't make me what I want, despite the fact that I'm willing to spend upwards of a week's income to buy it. That's a decent sized figure, considering.
Apple's Just Hypocritical (Score:3, Interesting)
Watta bunch of hypocrites!
Re:Cringely's opinion (Score:2, Interesting)
Because they weren't trying to dilute it, they just didn't have a choice. "eyeTV" was already taken, so they knew they would have run into problems had they used "itv".
The iPhone, on the other hand, was different. They thought they would be able to use the iPhone trademark without any hassle, just some licensing fees and regulations of use. But when Jobs prematurely ejaculated the name at Macworld because he thought the iPhone trademark was his god given right, all hopes of using it without much hassle went out the window. I'm sure Jobs' lawyers are giving him a spanking as we speak.
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.
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.
Re:The truth about Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
Let P be a publisher and C be one or more hero characters in one of P's franchises. Write a comic book about an organization P', a fictionalized version of P, which is a front for some evil/terrorist/criminal organization M, where the tactics of P' and M parody those of the real-life P. Have C fight P' and M, but have the climax turn on a widely known inconsistency in C. If P sues the author, the author has a fairly clear-cut case of fair use on grounds of parody (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose).
On the other hand, a Windows Mobile smartphone on most networks is more open than the Apple/Cingular phone.