First, I had a nice break and thanks to everyone who emailed while I did finals and holidays. New topics for the spring will be the effect of disparate copyright terms for phonorecords in different countries, a full analysis of cybersquatting cases in the US, and we will delve into how protection might be worked into the current U.S. IP scheme for currently unprotectable works, such as fashion and fragrences.
Now, while Apple introduced the iPhone this week, which was no real surprise to anyone who saw Apple’s most recent patent applications (also a nice Red Herring article), the name iPhone on the other hand was. Why? iPhone has been a federally registered trademark for a wireless phone since 1999 (application 1996) (TM information on the US Patent and Trademark Office’s site), and is currently owned by Linksys/Cisco. See Can Apple pick up the iPhone name? The licensing negotiations apparently failed. Now, comes the legal fight. Cisco is suing Apple over trademark infringement. it will come down to whether the name is suggestive, generic, or fanciful. I will note that it is 2007, and the name has been registered for more than 5 years, so, if I were counsel for Apple, I would claim it was (1) fanciful or suggestive, and (2) registered in bad faith. Back in 1999, any electronic consumer product on the market that was named starting with an i came from Apple. That is not the case any longer, but what counts is when it was registered.
On a related note, http://iPhone.com is owned by the Internet Phone Company, a VOiP phone provider. This should be fun.
Filed under: Trademark
Anyone grabbed an unlocked iphone off ebay? That means i can use it on any network right?
Thank you for this great relationship article. It may just help mine out. Thank you again!