The news
Apple's bright tomorrows
don't look quite so shiny now after Cisco Systems revealed
that it is suing
the company over the trademark 'iPhone' - the name used
for the combined
mobile phone/iPod
that the Steve Jobs unveiled in his keynote address at this week's
Macworld.
Cisco's law suit - issued in the US District Court for
Northern California - alleges trademark infringement,
unfair competition, false description and injury to business
reputation. Cisco is demanding a trial by jury to settle the
matter.
In its submission to the court, Cisco points out that it has been using
the iPhone name on
a
number of comparable products sold under its Linksys brand
and that Linksys has held the rights to the name for a long time.
That's something that Apple will have understood only too
well. The two firms, Cisco said, had been negotiating about
Apple's use of the name right up until the evening before Jobs'
announcement!
Linksys WIP iPhones
Linksys CIT iPhones
Apple's contentious iPhone (click
for larger image)
Although Cisco's suit casts a shadow over Apple and the choice of name
for its headline-grabbing product, what we don't know is
whether it will in any material affect what Apple does - usually, the
lawyers manage to sort these things out after the exchange of large
sums of money and various intellectual rights.
We may have a better idea, though, once financial analysts give their
take and this is reflected in changes to Apple's share price - for
which we'll have to wait until the US stock markets wake up.
Apple's share price currently stands at $97 - and that's a massive rise
even from the high point that it closed at on Tuesday, the day
of Jobs' keynote.
One weird little coincidence that may tickle your fancy is that
Tuesday's high was $80.86. Remove the dollar sign and
the decimal point and what you get is 8086 - the model number of the
Intel CPU behind the X86 CPU architecture that so many of us
use today on Windows which is also behind the regeneration of sales
of Mac computers following Apple's switch to Intel.
So how do you reckon this is all going to pan out? Read Cisco's press
release on page two (we've yet to see a formal response from Apple) -
and check out
Cisco's
legal submission if you have a mind to - then share your
thoughts with us in
this
thread in the
HEXUS.lifestyle.news forum.
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External.links
Apple UK -
home page
Apple USA -
home page
Linksys -
iPhone
model range
Cisco Systems -
law
suit against Apple (PDF - 772KB)
Cisco Systems -
home page
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