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.

Blogs.cisco.com
Newsroom.cisco.com
MSNBC

Steve Jobs of Apple had discussed some features of the iPhone in interviews with Nightline and CNBC. The announcement of the iPhone helped increase Apple’s stock value by over 8%, while RIM stocks were down nearly the same amount.

Videos available after the jump.

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Cingular Wireless and Apple officially announced today support for the new iPhone from Apple Inc. (yep, Apple dropped the word “computer” from their name as well). The announcement of the iPhone should not come as a major surprise to most users, since rumors of the iPhone have been brewing for over a year. Apple had done a wonderful job of keeping information leeks to a minimum to avoid over hyping the iPhone.

The iPhone will offer a full touch display with a built in proximity sensor to turn off the screen when the phone is close to your face (a very nice feature indeed). Backed by OS X the iPhone will be support Widgets, Google Maps, Safari as well as iTunes.

Apple iPhone features include:

• 2.0 megapixel camera
• 3.5-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen display
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE - 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (sorry no 3G here)
• Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
• Dimensions 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches
• Weight 4.8 ounces

iPhone will be available in the U.S. beginning in June 2007 in a 4GB model for $499 and an 8GB model for $599, and will work in combination with Apple’s iTunes running on either a PC or Mac.

Apple iPhone Specifications
Cingular Newsroom
Cingular Pre-orders
EngadgetMobile

As expected Cingular Wireless has released the Palm Treo 750 Windows based smartphone. Rumors of the 750 had leaked in September ’06 with hopes of having it available before the holidays. The Treo 750 is also the first Palm smartphone to support Cingular’s 3G/UMTS networks, dubbed BroadbandConnect.

Designed with the business customer in mind, the Treo 750 brings together the speed of Cingular’s BroadbandConnect service and broad solutions portfolio with Palm’s hallmark ease of use and functionality on top of the familiar Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. The new Treo 750 will deliver that extra edge that all customers are looking for to take their business to the next level, whether they are on the other side of town, across the country or halfway around the world.

Treo 750 features include:

• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 with MSFP
• QWERTY keyboard and internal antenna
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE - 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Tri-band UMTS, (upgradeable to support HSDPA in 2007)
• MiniSD expansion card slot - supports up to 2 GB
• 240 x 240 65K color touchscreen
• 128 MB ROM / 64MB RAM - 60 MB user available
• Bluetooth (1.2)
• 1.3 MP camera with 2x zoom and video capture
• Speakerphone

Cingular Wireless is offering the new Treo 750 for $399.99 after rebates and new two-year service agreement.

Sony Ericsson announced today the stylish HBH-PV705 Bluetooth headset. The HBH-PV705 includes three exchangeable panels to allow you to personalize the headset to match your outfit. Weighing in at just less than 14 grams makes the PV705 one of the lighter headsets available today. The PV705 offers 12 hours of talk time and 300 hours of stand by time as well.

The PV705 is expected to release in early 2007, pricing details have not been released.

Sony Ericsson Newsroom

Nokia announced today the world’s first NFC handset, the Nokia 6131. NFC (Near Field Communications) technology enables information sharing, service initiation and payment & ticketing capabilities with the dingle press of a button.

At CES there are dozens of potential use cases for the Nokia 6131 NFC phone. Instead of carrying a badge for entry, a tap of my phone could authorize my admittance to the exhibition, access to product information could be achieved by touching my phone on a product display, making carrying brochures around the show floor obsolete, and instead of heading to the ATM machine on a daily basis, coffee, sodas and hot dogs could be purchased using an NFC-enabled phone. In a trade show environment like CES, one of my favorite applications is using NFC-enabled business cards. Instead of going home with a pocket full of cards that I have to scan or hand type into my computer, I can simply touch the card, and I have all of the contact information right in my phone.

Along with the NFC features, the Nokia 6131 includes a built in digital music player with microSD support, 1.3 megapixel camera and Bluetooth. The Nokia 6131 NFC phone is expected in select markets in early 2007.