Apple and Cisco iPhone Trademark Negotiations Ongoing

[lazyrighteye]

Silly Cisco

Apple's not worried.
This product will release, in June (not earlier), under the iPhone name.
Period.

Move along...

 

[mikeinternet]

i agree. phone is way cooler than iphone. and before even calling it iphone i'd say 'ipod' is even better. it should be a member of the "ipod family" that happens to do what it does.

 

[Di9it8]

Is the name iPhone worth the fight and worth looking like Microsoft in order to get the name?

I agree, iMobile is much better.

What about iMob (for the flash mobbers!!)

 

[deejemon]

*

 

[Gasu E.]

hehe. you'd have thought cisco would have more brains than that, and at least put the sticker on before the shrinkwrap

Not at all relevant.

The simple turth is Cisco could get apple banned from using the iPhone name while it is in court and can easily tie it up long enough to make apple screwed on the release date.

Not easily. Prior restraint is infrequently granted by US courts, and only when both the plaintiff is likely to suffer significant damage from continuance of the current situation and it appears the plaintiff has a high likelihood of winning. It would be very hard for Cisco to establish that it will suffer significantly more damage than it has already if Apple continues using the trademark.

Apple shouldn't have called it the iPhone. Period.

It's not just that the name was already trademarked (legal loophole finding excepting), it's that it's a stupid name that doesn't fit in with their product line and doesn't allow them to provide cross brand association with similar devices.

Look at their current naming conventions, they're brilliant:

Hardware: Nothing after the 'i' refers to the initial functionality.

iPod. A name that has nothing to do with MP3s.
iMac. A name that has nothing to do with computers.

If Apple wants the iPod to be more than an MP3 player, it can (and is) doing it. If Apple wants to redefine the iMac as a media hub, it can (and is) doing it.

Software: What comes after the 'i' refers to a use or related concept, not a Microsoft style "description" which, again, would box it in:

iTunes. It plays music. But it now allows you to buy music too.
iCal. It shows a calender. But it allows you to schedule and record events against a calender.
iPhoto. It stores photos, but has some features allowing manipulation and publication of them.
...etc...

The iPhone naming convention applied to the above products would have been:

iMP3Player
iComputer
iMP3Manager
iScheduler
iJPEGLibrary

Now, you might be asking "so what?" Well, here's the thing. iPhone is obviously a fairly sophisticated platform (the damned thing runs OS X), is it going to be a mobile phone forever? Does every variant even need to be a mobile phone? Isn't it, ultimately, the next generation iPod and if so, what does Apple call a lower cost device built upon the same platform that, well, doesn't support telephony?

What Apple should have done is call this an iPod, or if they wanted to show a generational advance over existing iPods, done so without losing the connection (some name incorporating "Pod")

"iPhone is silly." It boxes Apple in.

I can see you are a mathematical thinker. Your argument is highly logical but requires far too much analytical tthought for the average consumer. Ever hear of "an elevator pitch?" You need to get the product message out in a few short words if you want to get through to the bulk of consumers.

The name "iPhone" says this is "an iPod that 'does phone.'" That allows Apple to leverage the enormous value of the iPod brand and at the same time indicate a new product direction. An "Apple Phone" is not going to be identified as an iPod.

 

[ex-hp]

screw the phone, when does os 10.5 come out?

 

[SpaceJello]

Cisco's vs Apple ad on New York Times

Hey can't post in the news forum, but thought i would post it here,

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02022007/business/apple_ad_it_coming_business_janet_whitman.htm