Cisco has sued Apple over use of iPhone Name

As noted previously, we were surprised that Steve Jobs called Apple's new phone the iPhone because that name appears to be trademarked by Linksys, now owned by Cisco. Furthermore, Cisco just released a VoIP handset called the iPhone. In rapid-fire sequence came reports that Apple had licensed the iPhone name from Cisco after long negotiations. Then, it was reported that the negotiations had not been completed before Steve Jobs' keynote on Tuesday. Now Cisco has filed a lawsuit and, according to CNet, Apple has responded:

"We think Cisco's trademark suit is silly...We believe (their) trademark registration is tenuous at best," said Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman. "There are already several companies using the iPhone name for VoIP (voice over IP) products. We're the first company ever to use iPhone for a cell phone. If Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we're confident we'll prevail," Kerris said.

So it's a legal battle now. It will be interesting to see more details on how Cisco claims it is damaged by Apple's use of the name regardless of whether there is a trademark infringement or not. It seems to us, that Cisco will actually benefit from Apple using the iPhone name rather than the reverse. Since Apple's iPhone is not a real product yet, Apple always has the option of using another name. If it weren't used so ubiquitously without defense, Apple might have been able to claim that its trademark is the small "i" in from of a product's common description, first used for the iMac. [Bill Fox]