iPhone Lawsuit Put On Hold For The Moment 72
SoulReaverDan writes "The recent lawsuit between Cisco and Apple on the iPhone trademark has taken an interesting turn. Cisco and Apple have agreed to a temporary truce, to allow Apple time to respond to the lawsuit (and, one assumes, avoid more legal fees). The article goes on to mention Apple's claim that several companies are using the iPhone name, which dovetails nicely with a great blog entry over on ZDNet. Alan Graham lays out a search of various websites, showing that not only is Cisco not the only one using the iPhone name, they're trying to use it just a little too hard. The image of the CIT300 (note this is NOT the CIT400 that Cisco is suing Apple for at all) on Amazon has the iPhone logo, but it lacks the logo on the Linksys website or on CDW's website."
Oh. My. God. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody cares. Let me know when there's something *meaningful* to report.
Have we collectively gotten to this point? (Score:2, Interesting)
Is this the corporate version of the minefield? As if to say, "Don't step on our toes, or we'll go off on you!" Is it necessary that the name of a product be sole ownership of a single product by a single company? Surely we all know which product we are talking about in conversation via the context of use. The corporations aren't afraid that we'll get the products confused, or that a bad review for a product of the same name will keep us from buying their product.
Or is it, more likely, that this is the school-yard bully tactic? Cisco flexing its muscles to intimidate Apple in order to establish self-esteem? Perhaps they have a staff of lawyers and figure that they might as well use them. Then again, I'm sure that Cisco's resources aren't vast enough to just flex its power at will with nothing to gain...
Or perhaps, just perhaps, that's the idea. There is no such thing as negative publicity. I'm now only familiar with the Cisco iPhone due to this litigation! Sounds like free marketing. If you can hold a press release, do it - it's free product advertisement...if you can't do that, sue someone to generate publicity for a product knowing that if it doesn't go to trial, it'll be cheaper than a marketing campaign.
I'm a software development major, not a marketing major - please tell me if there is any validity to my musings, or if I'm just cynical.
Re:Oh. My. God. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is extremely relevent to
I'm sure this is not the first case of this either.
Cisco iPhone name (Score:5, Interesting)
So, Cisco is using iPhone because products starting with "i" are hot, because Apple is selling the iPod. But Cisco is suing Apple because Apple is selling an iPhone.
Apple lawyers immediately trademarked the name "iRony".