Cisco Systems sued Apple Inc. in federal court on Wednesday, claiming that Cisco owns the iPhone trademark. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the long awaited Apple iPhone at the MacWorld Trade Show in San Francisco on Tuesday, but Cisco claims that Apple does not have the right to use the name 'iPhone'.
In spite of some reports yesterday to the contrary, the matter of the high-profile product's naming had not been resolved behind the scenes between two of the biggest names in Silicon Valley.
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris called Cisco's lawsuit "silly" and said there are already several other companies using the name iPhone for VoIP products:
"We believe that Cisco's U.S. trademark registration is tenuous at best," she said to the Associated Press. "Apple's the first company to use the iPhone name for a cell phone. And if Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we're very confident we will prevail."
According to Cisco, Apple has approached the company a number of times over the past few years about a licensing agreement to use the name iPhone, and that talks had heated up in the past few weeks. But communication between the companies ceased Monday, and even while Jobs was holding court at the Macworld Conference and Expo, Apple lawyers had not signed and returned the final contract.
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