Apple and Cisco attempt to reach out-of-court agreement over iPhone trademark
The war over the iPhone trademark is on hold; Cisco has agreed to give Apple more time to respond to Cisco’s lawsuit over the iPhone trademark.
Might Apple and Cisco kiss and make up?
Cisco filed the complaint in the San Francisco Federal Count in early January just after the iPhone was announced at the MacWorld Expo. Cisco stated that Apple’s iPhone “will share an identical sight and sound and strong similarity of meaning” with the iPhone trademark that it owns in the US.
Cisco launched a line of iPhone VoIP phones in mid December. It says it has owned the iPhone trademark in the US since 2000, when it purchased InfoGear Technology. Cisco alleged that Apple’s new phone is ”deceptively and confusingly similar” to its own VoIP phones.
Apple and Cisco now seem to be trying to reach an out-of-court settlement, with the companies having released a joint statement: “Apple and Cisco have agreed to extend the time for Apple to respond to the lawsuit to allow for discussions between the companies with the aim of reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability.”
It is believed that Apple tried to negotiate with Cisco to obtain rights to the trademark in the lead up to the iPhone announcement at MacWorld.
Apple has described the law suit as “silly” and said that Cisco’s trademark registration was “tenuous at best.”
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