“An investigation into the ongoing trademark dispute between Cisco and Apple over the name “iPhone” appears to show that Cisco does not own the mark as claimed in their recent lawsuit. This is based on publicly available information from the US Patent and Trademark office, as well as public reviews of Cisco products over the past year. The trademark was apparently abandoned in late 2005/early 2006 because Cisco was not using it,” Ed Burnette blogs for ZDNet.
“If Apple can prove in federal court that the Declaration of Use contained misstatements of fact, i.e. that there was no continuous use, then Cisco’s registration can be canceled. This could clear the way for the next company in line for the iPhone trademark, Ocean Telecom Services LLC (widely regarded as a front company for Apple). It could also explain why Apple decided not to sign the agreement Cisco proposed,” Burnette blogs.
Jay Behmke, a partner at CMPR who specializes in trademark law, and Tom Keeting, CTO of TMC Labs, explain more in Burnette’s full article here.
“I was just on the phone with Garvin Thomas, a reporter from NBC11 News who wanted my take on the iPhone lawsuit between Apple and Cisco and to discuss what he learned. First, when you search the US Patent and Trademark Office database for iPhone you will see 4 separate trademark applications for the term ‘iPhone.’ One is by Cisco, another by Teledex, another by Xtreme Mobile, and lastly a trademark application owned by “Ocean Telecom Services LLC” based out of Delaware. Apple is noticeably absent from this list, so perhaps one of these companies is a shell company acting on behalf of Apple. Sure enough when I checked the patent descriptions for all of them, the only one that resembled the Apple iPhone was the application from Ocean Telecom Services. The application appears to have been filed on September 26, 2006, though I also see an earlier date called ‘foreign filing date’ of March 27, 2006 from Trinidad and Tobago… I also see that Apple filed in Australia using the same Ocean Telecom Services,” Tom Keating blogs for TMCnet.
Full article here.
Related articles:
Surprise, surprise, surprise: Cisco demos Apple TV-like device – January 12, 2007
Analysts: Cisco ‘iPhone’ trademark suit likely to have little impact on Apple, to be quickly settled – January 12, 2007
iPhone more than a trademark for Apple CEO Steve Jobs – January 11, 2007
Jim Cramer: Why Cisco really sued Apple – January 11, 2007
Cisco General Counsel explains ‘iPhone’ lawsuit; Cicso wanted interoperability with Apple iPhone – January 11, 2007
Apple calls Cisco’s ‘iPhone’ trademark lawsuit ‘silly,’ says ‘very confident we’ll prevail’ – January 11, 2007
Cisco sues Apple for ‘iPhone’ trademark infringement – January 10, 2007
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 09, 2007
Briefly: Apple changes corporate name; Cisco expects agreement on ‘iPhone’ trademark today – January 09, 2007
Apple debuts iPhone: touchscreen mobile phone + widescreen iPod + Internet communicator – January 09, 2007
now this is a infinetely more intellegent writing than any of those morons like Mike melon-head Malone, Bob Enderle, Dork Dvorak, and Con Kantor!!