Networking company Cisco Systems aren't happy. Mainly with Apple boss Steve Jobs (though possibly other things too, but that's not relevant). The unhappiness centres on Jobs' demonstration of his new iPhone at the Mac Expo convention in San Francisco on Tuesday because, as far as Cisco are concerned, the name 'iPhone' belongs to them and Apple have no right using it.
Cisco say that negotiations between the two IT firms have been ongoing for sometime regarding the iPhone trademark - which they acquired in 2000 when they bought a company called Infogear, which had registered the trademark in 1996. Cisco say that in recent years Apple have made several offers to buy the trademark, at one time using a 'front company' to try and disguise the fact it was a rival computer firm that was seeking the name. More recently the two companies have been in discussions regarding ways that they could both use the iPhone name for rival products, with Cisco pushing Apple to commit to ensuring some kind of interoperability between Cisco's 'voice over IP' iPhone product and Apple's new multi-media-come-mobile-handset iPhone product on the pretext that such interoperability would reduce the problems of any consumer confusion caused by the common name. Those discussions reportedly continued but were not completed on Monday, the day before Jobs announced Apple's iPhone. Cisco say that they had stressed that Apple should not use the name formally in the public domain until an agreement had been reached between the two companies, hence the unhappiness following Job's iPhone announcement, and hence the lawsuit Cisco launched in the Californian courts yesterday.
Confirming the lawsuit, Cisco's Senior VP and General Counsel, Mark Chandler, told reporters yesterday: "We indicated that it was important that the negotiations [between Cisco and Apple] be completed before the launch of their product. Our expectation was that our name wouldn't be used without permission. And it is a surprise when any large company announces a product using a name they don't have a right to use".
Apple have dismissed Cisco's lawsuit, claiming that they never made any commitments to the plaintiff regarding not announcing their new product, and that anyway they don't need Cisco's permission to use the iPhone name because it has become a generic term in the voice over IP sector and, anyway, Apple's iPhone is not a voice over IP product. In fact, so sure are Apple that Cisco don't have a legal case against them regarding the use of the iPhone name, they've called the lawsuit, wait for it, "silly". Tough talking indeed.
Here's what Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris says: "We think Cisco's trademark suit is silly...We believe [their] trademark registration is tenuous at best. There are already several companies using the iPhone name for VoIP products. We're the first company ever to use iPhone for a cell phone. If Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we're confident we'll prevail".
The iPhone trademark was originally registered for a since discontinued Infogear desktop phone that had an inbuilt webbrowser. Cisco held onto the trademark, even though they weren't actively using it, after acquiring Infogear, finally launching a product using the name via its Linksys division last year. Some of those cynical types claimed Cisco chose to use the name last year mainly to piss off Apple, who were known to be busy developing a mobile phone version of the iPod which everyone expected them to call the iPhone.
Whether Apple and Cisco will continue their previous discussions regarding the trademark now the latter has gone legal remains to be seen. Personally I'm not sure iPhone is that great a name to be litigating over anyway - surely something like iMob would work just as well for Apple.