Apple And Cisco End Dispute Over iPhone

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

23 February 2007

Technology firms Cisco and Apple on Wednesday announced that they have resolved their dispute involving the “iPhone” trademark.

In January, Cisco announced that it had filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Apple, seeking to prevent Apple from infringing upon Cisco's registered iPhone trademark.

Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after completing the acquisition of Infogear, which previously owned the mark and sold iPhone products for several years. Infogear's original filing for the trademark dates to March 20, 1996.

According to Cisco, Linksys, one of its divisions, had been shipping a new family of iPhone products since early last year. On December 18, Linksys expanded the iPhone family with additional products.

"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel of Cisco stated at the time, continuing:

"There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."

However, under the agreement reached this week, both companies are free to use the “iPhone” trademark on their products throughout the world.

Both companies acknowledge the trademark ownership rights that have been granted, and each side will dismiss any pending actions regarding the trademark.

In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications.

However, other terms of the agreement are confidential.

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