Apple & Cisco: Friends At Last!

Apple & Cisco

Tech giants Apple and Cisco kissed and made up today after a six-week brawl over, get this, a name. Yeah, “iPhone” actually. Silly if you ask me.

Apple agrees. Last month it said “We [too] think Cisco’s trademark lawsuit is silly…there are already several companies using the name iPhone for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) products.”

Well just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you should, too, Apple. Didn’t your mother ever teach you that?

Nevertheless, the two companies agreed to share the iPhone trademark and said their products would “work together in the future.” Good for them.

Cisco Wants iPhone “Interoperability” with Products

Apple Cisco Interoperability

Regarding the Cisco-Apple lawsuit, Cisco CEO John Chambers said today that what his company wants from Apple, instead of money, is “interoperability, or the ability of the Apple phone to work smoothly with Cisco product.”

In a joint statement, the two tech giants said:

Apple and Cisco have agreed to extend the time for Apple to respond to the lawsuit to allow for discussions between the companies with the aim of reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability.

Without a doubt, this “interoperability” will be more lucrative for Cisco than ridding Apple of the iPhone name would be. Seems like a bit of a burden for Apple. But I guess that’s the price you pay for stealing someone’s trademark.

…via Biz Journals.

Related articles:

Cisco May Have Lost iPhone Trademark in 2006

Public papers from the US Patent and Trademark office may help prove that Cisco Systems lost the iPhone trademark last year, according to Jay Behmke, a trademark law attorney at CMPR.

Cisco did not sign the required Declaration of Use – which states “that you have been using the trademark continuously” in the past six years – until four days before the end of a six-month grace period granted to companies who miss the deadline.

And here’s a photo (thanks to Ed Burnette of ZDNet) that shows the required “copy of a label or other packaging showing the trademark in use” that Cisco sent to the US Patent and Trademark office:

Cisco iPhone Declaration of Use

The word “iPhone” is stickered on to the box, and there is no mention of it visible anywhere on the packaging.

Burnette said if Apple can prove in court that “Cisco did not actively offer a product named ‘iPhone’ between 1999 and December 2006,” then Cisco’s registration could be cancelled, and you can score one for Apple.

Related articles:

Cisco Sues Apple Over iPhone Trademark

We all saw it coming. Cisco Systems is suing Apple for infringing on the rights to its iPhone name, which it has held in the US since 1996.

Cisco said Apple approached the company a few years ago looking to use the iPhone name, and the two tech giants had been negotiating ever since to come up with some sort of licensing agreement.

Apparently, though, Steve Jobs decided to unveil the iPhone at Macworld before ever finalizing negotiations with Cisco. Upon realizing this, Cisco gave Apple lawyers until the end of the business day to finalize the contract, which they never did. Not surprisingly, Cisco Systems is pissed off and suing Apple now.

Related articles:

iPhone Unveiled… by Linksys

So the iPhone is out today. But it ain’t from Apple. The Linksys iPhone, from Cisco Systems, is a VoIP phone that’s not nearly as impressive as I’m hoping Apple’s mobile phone will be.

Update 2011: This post was written in December 2006. Funny to look back on it…

Linksys iPhone

What are the chances Apple’s phone will be called iPhone?