Cisco sues Apple over usage of the iPhone name

Cisco sues Apple over usage of the iPhone name for their mobile phone product

It is widely known that networking giant Cisco owns the trademark for the word iPhone in the United States. The company also recently launched some telephony products branded iPhone.

Now, that Apple has revealed that they are indeed going to launch a mobile phone in June this year branded iPhone; Cisco has gone ahead and filed a lawsuit against Apple.

This lawsuit has been filed by the company in a federal court. Cisco is claiming that Apple Inc is infringing on their trademark.

Cisco gained this trademark when they acquired InfoGear Technology Corp. in 2000. The company added that Apple had contacted them several times about a licensing agreement to use the name but no agreement has been accepted till now.

The company further said that the talks between the two companies ceased Monday as Apple lawyers had not signed and returned the final contract.

Mark Chandler, Cisco senior vice president and general counsel spoke on this new development: “We certainly expected that since they had gone ahead and announced a product without receiving permission to use the brand that meant that the negotiation was concluded.”

Apple responded by saying: “We believe that Cisco’s U.S. trademark registration is tenuous at best. Apple’s the first company to use the iPhone name for a cell phone. And if Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we’re very confident we will prevail.”

Market analysts believe that Cisco have better things to do then waste money and time on suing Apple Inc. for right to usage of a word.