Rumors are rampant as to just what Cisco wanted from Apple
in exchange for some trademark sharing, and now Mark Chandler, SVP of Cisco, has weighed in with his own take on the situation. Apparently Cisco wasn't hitting up Apple for cash, asking for royalties or hedging for an IT contract -- or at least none of those were "issues at the table" and keeping them from an agreement, so there's always the slight chance a couple such bribes were already givens. Apparently what Cisco was
actually out for was an "open approach," with Apple opening up its
iPhone enough to allow interoperability with
Cisco's offering. "We wanted to make sure to differentiate the brands in a way that could work for both companies and not confuse people, since our products combine both web access and voice telephony." Mark's argument is that with the aggressive way Apple tends to protect its IP, even to the point of bragging about the 200+ patents in the iPhone that it plans on protecting, Apple should do Cisco more courtesy than announcing an iPhone without wrapping up talks in actual licensing -- talks which were apparently "substantive" as late as 8pm on Monday, when Cisco made its final demands. No word on how this is going forward, but it's clear something's gotta give, and Cisco's 11-year-old trademark sure looks to have the upper hand.
[Via
Techmeme]
posted Jan 10th 2007 11:47PM
Wouldn't interoperability REDUCE differentiation, and therefore further blur the (necessary) IP distinction between the two products?
One is a cell phone, the other is a VoIP phone. They're not competing products.
Cisco has every right to protect the name, but I don't understand how this WASN'T about money.
EVERYTHING'S about money. my hat's off to Cisco for pattenting the name first. definitely earned them the right to capitalize on Apple's shortcomings. seriously Apple, you should have had this name-patent in the bag YEARS ago instead of worrying so much about "rumors". you knew it was going to get out sooner or later. and now look at you...paying the price so early in the game.
and another thing...do you really think they'll sell the projected 10 million iPhone's in 1 years time?? even WITHOUT 3G data and a mediocre pixeled camera?? even with excellent marketing, the public can only be fooled for so long.
According to Apple, I hit the nail on the head:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/01/10/iphonesuit/index.php
QUOTE:
An Apple executive told PC World magazine that because the Cisco iPhone is a VOIP phone and the Apple iPhone is a cell phone, Apple is not in violation of Cisco’s trademark. “They’re different products,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPod marketing. The iPhone also includes an iPod music player.
Can I start blogging for you guys now? Haha :P
While I'm far from an IP attorney, I would wager that, due to Stevie's big mouth, Cisco is probably in an even better bargaining position now that the iPhone is what the whole world knows the new product as.
It is funny that Apple makes these sorts of distinctions between their iPhone and Cisco's but does not want anyone to use the word "pod" in any sort of non-Apple product.
The talks were going right up to the wire, when Jobs evidently decided that the show must go on.
As Jim notes above, Steve Jobs announcing the iPhone radically changed the power relationship in Cisco's favor. Which I assume both parties knew about.
Cisco was apparently making demands and holding out for "openness" that Apple is not known for, and for a joint marketing strategy. This would obviously not sit well with Jobs. It's possible that Cisco deliberately stalled negotiations on this one to push past the announcement in order to have more clout afterwards.
All in all, poorly played by Jobs -- he should have sewn this thing up months ago. I assume he didn't because either he thought he could get out of it for a few million dollars, or because he didn't want to give away too much advance info on iPhone to non-Apple players.
If Cisco can't come to an agreement with Apple, they should just release the trademark into the wild, and tell everyone in the world that they can call anything they want an iPhone. See how Apple likes it when the market's flooded with cheap knock-off iPhones.
(Spoken of course as a person with no knowledge of trademark law at all)
LiSa Cisco did not pAtEnT iPhone they bought a company who registered the trademark. Figure it out.
And if you did not realize last time around with the iPod, people will buy it. Apple may not sell 10 million if that is what they claimed, but they will sell as many as they can produce.
Jim, yes you are not an IP attorney. Bargaining was done when the court case was filed. Regardless of what the whole world knows the iPhone is means they don't know what Cisco's is and does and means it does not work for Cisco.
Also go lookup Teledex iPhone and Info Gear iPhone and upgrade your IP skills.