When reading about the launch of the Apple iPhone, most techies simply thought: 'I want one'. But not so those people at Cisco, whose immediate thought was: 'We already have one'.
Cisco's home page currently features adverts for its iphone product. Cisco have owned the trade mark 'iphone' since 2000, and their press release reports that Linksys (a division of Cisco) has been shipping products under the iphone brand since early last year.
Cisco were quick to react, launching a trade mark infringement claim around 24 hours after Apple's announcement of the product launch.
Who will win? Cisco's iphone trade mark is registered for "computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks". Whilst Apple claim that the trade mark has not been applied before to a mobile phone, it is certainly possible to argue that there is a risk of confusion between the Linksys products and the Apple phone (at least among those who have never seen an Apple product before).
There are other trade mark registrations for 'iphone', including one by Ocean Telecom which has been alleged by Cisco to be linked to Apple.
A number of other products appear to be using the brand, but it seems unlikely that Apple would be able to argue that the 'iphone' name is generic, and therefore should not be the subject of trade mark protection. If Apple did use this argument, they risk losing the right to stop third parties using the 'iphone' name.
Apple state that they are confident they will be able to defeat the lawsuit, but Cisco's claim suggests that Apple have been trying to acquire the brand since 2001. Watch this space!
