Mark Chandler, Cisco’s SVP and General Counsel has decided to blog about the iPhone lawsuit, trying to clarify what the situation is all about, and making sure that we all know that Cisco was just trying to work with Apple…and Apple didn’t want to work back the way Cisco wanted them too…so they’re suing them.
To read this article you would think that Cisco, a company that is MUCH bigger than Apple, was an underdog in this situation, and is working overtime to paint a simpathetic picture.
Something about this feels very greasy to me, and I can’t really put my finger on it…but I can’t help but feel that Cisco is going to milk this for all it’s worth, and by the time it’s over, they’re going to get a few million dollars worth of free advertising for their new iPhone line.
Now, having said that…boy Jobs and Co were real dumbasses on this one, weren’t they?
I mean, seriously, how stupid a move is it to announce the Apple Phone product as the iPhone without the paperwork being signed?
The worst part about all of this, to me, is that iPhone isn’t even that good of a name! It kinda sucks. The “i” thing is played out, and it’s time to move on to something else.
Hopefully Apple will just announce a name change and be done with it…but I don’t think we’re that lucky.
So many posts of how Apple is wronging Cisco, Cicso wronging Apple… what would you say if you knew Cicso actually “lost” the patent for “non-use”?
The following is a quote from an Ed Burnette column at ZDNet…
“The Cisco iPhone trademark was registered 11/16/1999 (Reg. No. 2293011). In order to keep a trademark registration active, you have to file a Declaration of Use on or before the sixth anniversary of the registration date, in which you state, under penalty of perjury, that you have been using the trademark continuously during that period. The sixth anniversary would have been 11/16/2005.”
Apple probaly gave Cicso a chance to be reasonable, and walked out because they wanted too much – knowing Cisco had missed the “phone” on the trademark…
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=236