Bollocks, Apple has something that Cisco doesn't. Brand recognition. Cisco has every right to be litigious in this matter, but you can bet that Apple's brand clout has more than a little to do with Cisco's choice to sue. All the legal coverage of this dispute will get both phones on TV, but unfortunately, I think no matter what Apple comes out on top as far as the exposure thing goes.
Yeah, I think that's actually becoming clearer.
Honestly, who here even knew that Cisco had the iPhone trademark?
I honestly didn't until I saw the news story in December about the iPhone being launched, and the big surprise was that it was a Cisco/Linksys VOIP product. But what of course made that a surprise is that almost everyone had been using the iPhone name to refer to Apple's rumored phone.
That zdnet post above seems to indicate that Cisco had been sitting on the trademark for a long time, and it definitely seems like they might not have even bothered putting the name on a product until they really knew that Apple had some interest in it.
It seems awfully suspicious now that Cisco released a new 'iPhone' product only weeks before Apple ended up launching their product. It makes it pretty clear I think that Cisco in fact did want to get some press out of this (and again, honestly, who the heck would be talking about Cisco and their VOIP phones otherwise?).
I just think it is pretty funny that the end result of this could be that Cisco didn't even properly protect their trademark before, and let it be abandoned, and didn't start using it until too late (when they knew Apple wanted it, and thought they could do something to try and squeeze money out of Apple or publicity or the "interoperability" to try and find some way for Cisco products to get some sales thanks to Apple's product).
-Zadillo