San Francisco: What's a name worth?
To find out, Cisco Systems Inc and Apple Inc may spend millions of dollars in a high-stakes legal battle – and the winner could walk away with the rights to the coveted name "iPhone."
In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, Cisco asked a judge to forbid Apple from using the name "iPhone," a Cisco trademark since 2000.
The case hinges in part on whether Apple's phone – a sleek, $499 gizmo unveiled Tuesday to much fanfare – could confuse shoppers looking to buy Cisco's iPhones.
Attorneys specialising in intellectual property said yesterday that Cisco will likely win, if the case goes to court.
"Cisco's argument will hold water," said David Radack, chairman of the intellectual property department at Pittsburgh-based Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC.
"It'd be like if I sold spark plugs, then someone else said I'm going to sell carburetors with the same name. Yeah, they're different products - but they're both sold in auto parts stores, and someone who saw the brand name on a spark plug could reasonably think it was made by the same company."
Last spring, Cisco began selling a line of bulky but inexpensive iPhones that make free long-distance calls over the Internet, a technology known as Voice-over Internet Protocol.
Amazon.com sells them for as little as $12, though they require extra software and hardware and are usually sold in kits that start around $70 and can cost $200 or more.
Apple's iPhone is a sleek cellular gadget that delivers e-mail, Web sites, music and movies over the Cingular Wireless network.
Comments
0 comment