iPhone litigation

There were a few products called "iPhone" that were released prior to Apple's own iPhone devices, leading to litigation involving claims of trademark infringement.

Trademark status in the United States

Infogear had first produced a desktop "iPhone" in 1998 and was acquired by Cisco Systems, which itself acquired the "iPhone" trademark in 2000. However, Cisco stopped releasing the iPhone products in 2001. Upon discovering that Apple had been developing its own iPhone, Cisco scrambled to renew its iPhone trademark, which was about to expire. Cisco then negotiated with Apple right up until 8pm during the night before the 2007 keynote address in which Steve Jobs revealed Apple's first iPhone. Before finalizing the deal to use the name and commit to interoperability of products from the two companies, Cisco had intended to use the trademark for their VoIP Linksys products. Apple, on the other hand, stated that their product wouldn't have any VoIP capabilities. They wanted it to be a mobile phone from the very beginning.

Red Herring reported that the iPhone trademark could have cost Apple as much as $325 million dollars per year, which would have represented around 15% of Apple's revenue in 2006. However, Cisco may have already forfeited their rights to the trademark in the United States because of failing to put it in active use by their filing deadline of November 16, 2005. Cisco attempted to address this during their grace period by placing an "iPhone" sticker on one of their pre-existing Linksys products.

Ocean Telecom Services

Prior to the deal, Cisco claimed that Apple had created a phony company called "Ocean Telecom Services LLC", which did business in Trinidad and Tobago. The company filed an Intent to Use the brand name iPhone on September 2006. The priority date for it was March 2006, based on the filing of the same name in Trinidad and Tobago. When Apple registered the iPhone name in Australia, their priority date was the same, based on the very same filing. Ocean Telecom's address (based in Wilmington, Delaware) is owned by "CT Corporation", a registered agent which could forward every legal document to Apple.

Cisco's intentions

Cisco senior VP and general counsel Mark Chandler mentioned in his blog about the legal dispute regarding the rights on the trademark for "iPhone". He stated that it wasn't all about the money, but Cisco wanted cooperation. The company wanted future phones from Cisco subsidiary Linksys, which actually held the rights to the iPhone trademark, to be compatible with Apple's mobile phones.

Trademark status in Australia

Apple registered the iPhone trademark in Australia in September 2006, based on a priority date of March 2006 (from a filing in Trinidad and Tobago).

Trademark status in Canada

Comwave Telecom Inc. owned the IPhone brand name in Canada, and had been using it for their VoIP services since 2004. It even had a wireless device called IPhone Mobile. Yuval Barzakay, Comwave's president and chief executive, commented in a press release:

"There's no confirmed reports that Apple will launch IPhone in Canada, and there's no trademark designation on their IPhone logo. So we're not quite sure where they're headed with that."

Trademark status in Europe

Trademark specialist Lee Curtis of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, suggested that Cisco was also at risk of losing the iPhone trademark in Europe, because the trademark had not been officially used in Europe during the last five years. A German law firm, CMS, already filed a request to revoke the rights to use the iPhone name by Cisco. If the court would decide against Cisco, the iPhone trademark would go Apple, which was next in line to register the trademark.

External links

• iPhone at Infogear (archived 1999-05-08)
• iPhone at Linksys (archived 2007-04-06)
• Apple Inc. litigation: Trademark and iPhone: Intellectual property at Wikipedia