Cisco has sued Apple over its use of the term iPhone for its newly announced mobile device, despite reports that they were near an agreement with Apple to share the name.
After Steve Jobs wowed the Macworld faithful and the tech community at large with his announcement of the long-awaited mobile dubbed iPhone, a representative for networking giant Cisco had said they expected to reach a deal with Apple about the trademark.
That statement from Cisco post about the lawsuit, Chandler said Apple has been asking about using the name since 2001.
He also commented further on the behind the scenes talk between the two companies about iPhone:
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 no substantive communication 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.
If the tables were turned, do you think Apple would allow someone to blatantly infringe on their rights? How would Apple react if someone launched a product called iPod but claimed it was ok to use the name because it used a different video format? Would that be ok? We know the answer - Apple is a very aggressive enforcer of their trademark rights.
An Apple response to the lawsuit appeared on the Wall Street Journal's
It would appear that somewhere over the past few years since 2001, Apple had decided a sharing agreement with Cisco just wasn't going to happen. One would be hard-pressed to believe Apple spent a lot of time negotiating with Cisco, only to have a moment of
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Cisco Calls Apple On Trademark Infringement
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