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Trademark infringement and the Apple iPhone

The eagerly awaited iPhone was finally unveiled back in January by Steve Jobs of Apple.

The iPhone allows users to listen to music, surf the web, text, email, upload photos, and even make phone calls.

Cisco, however, claimed that they owned the rights to the ‘iPhone’ name.

Therefore, the iPhone lawsuit consisted of Cisco suing Apple for trademark infringement.

As part of the lawsuit, Cisco said that Apple tried to get the rights to use the iPhone name on several occasions, but was repeatedly denied that right by Cisco.

False pretences

They then suggested that Apple then created a false company in order to try to obtain the rights under false pretenses.

The iPhone name was originally owned by Infogear, a small company based in California.

When Cisco acquired Infogear in 2000 they also acquired the rights to the iPhone name in the process.

It should be noted that there is no suggestion that Apple stole any technical data or even the phone’s design concepts.

The lawsuit was purely about the name.

A done deal

Cisco offered Apple the benefit of time in the hope that an out of court settlement could be found.

Though no comment was ever made about a financial settlement, the case was later dropped and both companies, according to a brief statement, are now allowed to retain the use of the iPhone brand on their products.

One can only wonder how much such a deal has cost Apple?

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