"It is our belief that
Apple intends to agree to the final document." Not so much. We're not quite sure what broke down in talks between Cisco and Apple, but they ain't playing friendly no more. Cisco just announced that it has filed a lawsuit in Northern California to prevent Apple from infringing upon its registered iPhone trademark. The word yesterday was that Apple and Cisco had been involved in "extensive discussions," and that they were expecting Apple to sign up for whatever final agreement they proposed. "Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," says Mark Chandler of Cisco. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission." Obviously all we've heard so far is Cisco spin on the situation, but so far it sounds like they're being fairly reasonable with Apple on this -- it is their own dang trademark after all. So what gives, Apple?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted Jan 10th 2007 6:49PM
"If not, good luck, Apple, you're screwed."
Really.. they could rename it anything, and this product will be a category killer.. how are they screwed?
Good idea back there too.. call it the ApplePhone.. Mac nano.. whatever.. it's an amazing product with a great name that happens to be held by a company that doesn't know phones.
I rooting for Cisco big time on this one... I hope Apple has to change the name of their phone... that would put them in their place after all their rediculous lawsuits.
amen!
Apple does "own' the iPhone trademark in other countries, just not the US. So it is a nice catch-22. Cisco can't use the iPhone moniker outside of the 50 states, Apple can't use it within the 50 states (and of the 1 billion cell phone sales worldwide, the proportinon in the US is around 20% - although smartphone sales are a bit higher).
But regardless of the outcome, Apple has managed to keep THEIR iPhone in the news for two days - for an expensive product that won't ship for 5 months. Priceless. Utterly priceless.
Why the delay? Specs not finalized? HSDPA? 3 megapixel camera? More memory? OS X 10.5? This story has plenty of legs.....
Zadillo:
Mr. Picklesworth wrote:
You bring up an important reminder: Consistency!
iPhoto, iLife, etc... those are all software. iPod is the exception and I have to admit the first time I heard about it I thought it was a computer program. It still easily could be software, with Pod being Podcast. Fits in with iLife perfectly, no?
Their hardware, however (with the exception of the iMac) doesn't start with "i"s... and it shouldn't. They really should have thought out this naming scheme of theirs rather than just having some monkey prefixing "i"s at random.
-----
You mean "Their hardware, however (with the exception of the iMac, iPod, and (until they were threatened with another lawsuit) iTV) doesn't start with "i"s..."
Which kind of blows your argument way out of the water.
apple had to have known about cisco's iphone. all gadget geeks did. so why did it use that name yesterday knwoing that a lawsuit was sure to come?
here's my take, and i think it's a brilliant move on apple's end.
the product hasn't been released yet, and still needs a few tweaks for it to be ready for the june release. however, the first bang is always the biggest bang, and apple needed to make a loud noise about this phone. by using the the name iphone in the announcements yesterday, apple more than assured themselves the name "iphone" to be connected by the public to their phone, not cisco's phone. your brand is what people perceive it to be, not necessarily what it is in reality. no one knows about cisco's phone. however, after yesterday, even if apple agrees to change the name of the phone to "apple phone" in june, people would no doubt still call it 'iphone', even though its real name is "apple phone". meanwhile, cisco's phone will be named "iphone", but no one will know about it. and when they do, they will think of it as "the other iphone", or "cisco's voip phone".
in essence, even though apple doesn't technically own the name 'iphone', it actually does because that's what the public will be calling it.
answer this question for yourself.. when you see the apple iphone, what do you call it? when you think "iphone", what do you think it is and who's phone it is? see what i mean? cisco may own the name, but not the "brand".
Good point. But laws are laws, Apple will lose this battle still, whether you like it or not.
Now, we all know who's got the biggest balls of all... Well done, Steve!
Cisco does not deserve that trademark. It has almost no value to them except to give them a platform to look ridiculous in front of the entire world. Seriously, one can only wonder why the hell the product they sell is called iPhone.
LinkSys network products, however, kick Apple network products in the ass any day of the year. If all goes well, Apple will agree to dump their lame Airport technology and use LinkSys technology inside their elegant Airport boxes.
Jeff,
I was about to post the same idea... I too think it was an excellent marketing move on Apple's part. They are not stupid - it was planned. Over the next few months - we'll see a lot more press on this. Cheers to Apple on an excellent marketing plan.
The Saddest Part Of All Of This Is The Fact That I've Seen The Backbone Of Apple Headquarters And Their Entire Routing Scheme Is Comprised Or Cisco Routers LOL!
Can You Say "Overhaulin' : Apple Edition??"
Steve Jobs is a pr*ck. That's his persona. It's what he does. It should come as no surprise that the company Job's founded should act in this way -- prickishly.
It's also why I don't buy Apple products. Has something to do with the fact that if you deal with pr*cks long enough, you end up getting f*cked.
Oh, and I love to see how people seem to ignore the fact that Apple's infamous legal department has been looking at this trademark issue for years and under every possible aspect. I mean, we're talking about bullies who send nastygrams to 8-year olds just because Apple received unsolicited product improvement suggestions from them.
So it is possible that, despite appearances, Cisco has a case weaker than everybody thinks.
That never happened. Apple asks for feed back from all their customer. Don't make #%$^ up.
LOL, you reply to my comment only... 9 months later. Are you sure you've got your computer clock right? And to top it all, you do that to humiliate yourself? Be kind to yourself... read the following and learn something... http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/04/17/apple.makes.girl.cry/
Apple isn't screwed - all they have to do is reach a settlement or change the name prior to distribution.
Yawn. Much ado about nothing. Move along...
From a strategic perspective, this is pretty interesting. With iThis and iThat, the iName really isn't all that interesting anymore. The [apple]Device branding is really slick. Very nice. And a #$%#$% of a lot cheaper to maintain in the long run.
So we'll introduce it as the iPhone. If Cisco gives us any trouble, we'll call a major press conference and change the name of the device and make it consistent with our *new branding strategy*.
Yep. Great advertising. Bait em... Set the hook... Throw 'em back... We get mucho media coverage at each step of the way. Look at how much we've saved/gained in advertising...
Scary... But I like it...
"held by a company that doesn't know phones"
Yeah. Just like they didn't know music players. I suspect we're soon going to learn just how much they know phones.
imobile
case closed
doesn't iphone reminds you of prada phone by LG???
isn't Cisco register "iphone" because they knew apple will use this trademark, too? That is what I thought. I think they want to earn $$ from this sue. Maybe?
gtsai,
You are wrong. InfoGear (which Cisco acquired) had the trademark iPhone in 1996 before Apple had i. This is a bad move on Apple's part.
This is all sounding like pure marketing genius. It's world famous in two days, so it doesn't matter what they call it. It's selling itself regardless of name.
First he steals from The Beatles, now this.
My guess is that Cisco is just flexing some muscle because they realize how huge this is going to be. They probably agreed in good faith and then realized "Holy crap! This thing is going to be huge...how can we get MORE money?"
Whatever - it's just a name - I say if Cisco wants to screw around Apple should just tweak the name. Bottom line is the product is amazing and the name really doesn't matter anymore. People bought Blackberry's - what a retarded name that is!
Maybe they should just use either
'iCall', 'iCan' (as in iCan do lots with this phone) or the 'iCell'
Maybe this is just free advertising for Apple, probably cheaper than a global maketing campaign!!
This isn't really all about the name, nor it is about the lawsuit and patents. It's just about marketing, guys! Think about it: it's more or less free publicity for the phone, even of Apple decided to change the name later, the phone will be mentioned a hell lot more often now because of the trademark issue.
I think from Apple's side this was all intended to happen in order to make the phone's impact even more powerful and to burn it into EVERYONE'S mind. Steve Jobs wanted to make history with it...so he does!
apple's product is more deserving of the name.
The Apple "iPhone" product hasn't been released into the marketplace yet. Apple and Cisco have until, probably, June to resolve this dispute and certainly until the FCC licenses are cleared. The name is not going to make a very big difference because nobody will ever walk into a retail store and ask for the iPhone and not be shocked and extremely disappointed if they are handed a Linksys iPhone.
Do you know how many years Amazon had to fight to steal that name from other retail sellers? Amazon wasn't the first company to use that name, not even the first book seller or national retailer.
This kind of naming, branding, and product identity shifting goes on everyday in the retail world - you have to be legally illiterate not to understand there have been teams of lawyers looking at this issue for years. To be indignant and shocked only demonstrates an ignorance of a machinima in introducing a product into the market and in dealing with trademark law.
Certainly, by the time Apple goes to market with their cell phone in late spring, early summer nobody is going to be thinking about this and, still, nobody is going to be thinking they actually want a Linksys phone when they ask for an iPhone. Apple, just like with Apple TV (did you ever stop to think how many ITV products there are out there?), if Apple cannot use iPhone, they can easily sell it under the name Apple Phone and still nobody is going to buy a Linksys phone.
Cisco may own the name but they are fools for calling anything 'i'. Apple started, and popularized that and it is ridiculous and sad for any other company to glom onto it.
Seems to me its the perfect way for Apple to keep up the buzz for their product by embroiling themselves in controversy over it.
The initial adopters for this product are gonna be the fanboy set and nothing apple does short of shagging their pet hamsters will upset them or seem wrong. That will allow Apple to drive public opinion against Cisco, and make Cisco look look like the bad guys for holding up delivery of the life changing hardware really is lacking for the massed majority of people. It helps keep people from focusing on the downsides of what is really an evolutionary product. Those downsides being Storage capacity, cost, Phone carrier excluisivity, 1.0 product, and older slow and hideously expensive wireless data technolgies.
Phil
Apple will continue to use the name "iPhone" till all the court appeals have failed and then change the name to ApplePhone. People will continue to call it iPhone and Cisco will never get their trademark back.
Face it, Apple has "kleenexed" the entire iBrand so that people always think of Apple when they see the "i" tag on any product.
Is Steve Jobs crazy? Crazy like a fox.
Apple...
Shove THIS up your hard drive!!!
This is all pre-planned theatrics with Apple paying Cisco to play their role.
what if the LG cholocate phone and the apple phone merged? Then people would be able to buy chocolate apple phones. Mmmm, chocolate apples
Apple has been using the prefix "i" on their products for longer than most can remember. Cisco filed for the trademark amidst all of the discussion of the apple phone. If one takes a look at the trend in Apple products, most of them contain "i" at the beginning. For example, the iPod, the iMac, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iChat, iWeb, iCal, etc. It is obvious that Apple had been planning on coining the term iPhone for their new breakthrough product. It is ridiculus that Cisco is even suing Apple for calling their phone, which has been rumored for years, iPhone. If you ask me, Cisco knew that Apple would call their product iPhone, so they did the same, and by putting their product on the market first, they have the credibility to sue Apple using the name that they were obviously going to use.
Apple has been using the prefix "i" on their products for longer than most can remember. Cisco filed for the trademark amidst all of the discussion of the apple phone. If one takes a look at the trend in Apple products, most of them contain "i" at the beginning. For example, the iPod, the iMac, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iChat, iWeb, iCal, etc. It is obvious that Apple had been planning on coining the term iPhone for their new breakthrough product. It is ridiculus that Cisco is even suing Apple for calling their phone, which has been rumored for years, iPhone. If you ask me, Cisco knew that Apple would call their product iPhone, so they did the same, and by putting their product on the market first, they have the credibility to sue Apple using the name that they were obviously going to use.
this recent craze of adding an "i" prefix all started when the APPLE ipod took off. iPod, iMac, iBook, iPhone. Anyone who adds an "i" prefix is just trying to make a product that is comparable to an apple product. but apple smokes them every time. its almost not even fair.
As much as i love apple, i think they had this one coming to em'
Cisco is now running Linksys iPhone ads on the Google ad network:
http://billday.com/2007/01/19/cisco-running-iphone-ads-on-google-ad-network/
Is Cisco trying to makes its case before a counter-suit?
If Apple loses, I bet we'll see the same thing as iTV - they'll just rename it to Apple Phone. That'll be much more reasonable than anything else I've see so far - iCall, iCell, iMobile and all the other stuff..
Hi,
I work for Apple Comptuers. I am in one of the CA locations. I think that it should have been taken care of a long time ago between Apple and Cisco. Way before the iPhone's launch.
However, we all know in the industry that Apple's signature products have "i" and "pod" in them. Why on earth would a compnay call their product iAnything unless they are trying to encrotch on Apple prodcut nitch.
I think Cisco named their product like that on purpose just to try to hone in on our customers. Just like the iTV.... who do they think they are? They have fooled a few people into buying their iTV, because they thought it was an Apple product. Who knows maybe Cisco was trying the same thing.... NOW their going to get...ummm.. how did you guys put it Powned!!!!
You can't touch a company that actually makes money and has a good stock! Cisco knows that they probably need this lawsuit to say in business.