Cisco Systems to Sue Apple over iPhone Trademark
January 11th, 2007
Cisco Systems filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. in a federal court today, stating that the new iPhone violates its trademark. Cisco has owned the trademark on the name “iPhone†since 2000, when it acquired InfoGear Technology which originally registered the name in 1996, before iMacs and iPods had been available.
According to Mark Chandler, Cisco’s SVP, Apple had approached Cisco about the iPhone trademark as early as 2001, with discussions increasing in frequency until recent.
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. We genuinely believed that we were going to be able to reach an agreement and Apple’s communications with us suggested they supported that goal. We negotiated in good faith with every intention to reach a reasonable agreement with Apple by which we would share the iPhone brand.
So, 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.†Despite being very close to an agreement, we had substantive communications from Apple after 8pm Monday, including after their launch, when we made clear we expected closure. What were the issues at the table that kept us from an agreement? Was it money? No. Was it a royalty on every Apple phone? No. Was it an exchange for Cisco products or services? No.
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