Comments on: Battle for iPhone … Cisco Sues Apple

By: Arrancan los problemas legales para el iPhone de Apple

Arrancan los problemas legales para el iPhone de Apple — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:18:42 +0000

[...] Tuaw, GigaOm, Denken [...]

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:42:51 +0000

The intent of a Trademark is to keep one company from capitalizing on another companies established brand name. iPhone is immediately associated with Apple.

Put iPhone into Google. What's the first hit? Argument solved.

In this interpretation, Cisco is in Trademark violation.

By: Bob Johnson

Bob Johnson — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:52:36 +0000

Of course Cisco sues. It's not a question of right and wrong. It's a question of money, either they'll settle for the money, or Cisco sues them for the money.

Call it what you want, but "being friendly" is just dumb when Apple is literally giving away money.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:31:05 +0000

What about iPod Max

By: jonathan frate

jonathan frate — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 07:51:12 +0000

How about:

iWillHaveToIndemnifyCingularPrettySoon?

By: Michael Boone

Michael Boone — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 14:43:05 +0000

I do like MacPhone, but what about just calling it iPod Phone, it would be just like iPod Nano or iPod Shuffle, just iPod Phone.

By: Barbarugui

Barbarugui — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:48:29 +0000

iBlab

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:55:37 +0000

iMob

By: DripStick

DripStick — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:43:29 +0000

MacPhone, of course!

By: its4us2think

its4us2think — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:32:58 +0000

aPhone, not sexy but ubiquitous

By: karmel

karmel — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:29:50 +0000

True Mike, and wonderful Prashanth. Compare the two sites for iphone and apple tv http://www.apple.com/iphone/ http://www.apple.com/appletv/ and notice the logo. Why does the iPhone have the Apple logo before its name? Isn’t it similar to the Apple TV? Should it be called Apple iPhone, or was the logo put there for testing and it looked cool? The iPod logo does not have Apple in front of it. Is it easier to call it an Apple Phone rather than Apple iPhone?

And btw everything is CompanyName ThingName nowadays, take Google Search, Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Whatever, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Search, Windows Live Thing, or Microsoft Things, Yahoo! Things. It would very much make sense for Apple to make the move, that is why Computers was taken out of their company name, so that they would not have two words like the confusion of Windows Live Thing.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 01:29:36 +0000

Brilliant comment, Prashanth. It explains the choice of Apple TV over iTV and Apple's apparent sloppiness around the iPhone mark. Apple is many things, but sloppy about a product launch is not one of them.

The iPod is still cool but the ubiquity of iEverythingElse has cheapened the brand. Time to move on to appleThings.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:32:03 +0000

You know, that's almost twisted enough to work. And you know what would be even more twisted? If Cisco was a willing partipant in this little dance. Say the "settlement" is some really good deal down the road for playing the bad guy ("See, we made up and are now working together").

I guess it's time to push back from the computer now :^)

By: Prashanth Pappu

Prashanth Pappu — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:39:14 +0000

Could it be that Apple is effecting the smartest brand transition ever (from "i" to apple?) for all its consumer products? Because the more devices they make, the harder it will be to name them "iThings" and a better strategy would be to name them "appleThings".

And look at what Apple did in the Mac show -

They dropped the name computer from their company name (apple computer is simply apple now)
They already called their iTV as appleTV and Jobs made a joke about mixing up the names in the presentation.
They might actually be using the public, lawsuit with cisco to market this transition for their phone specifically and al their prducts in general. Apple would willingly comply later, blame cisco and name its phone - apple phone!

But the publicity and the buzz would create the perfect transiton for apple too! People themselves would joke about both iPhone and applePhone (like Jobs himself did with iTV/appleTV) until they start calling things simply appleThings. Wicked.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:26:10 +0000

I have to disagree with you karmel. If calling this thing iPod mobile makes it just another iPod, then calling it MacPhone makes it just another Mac. No more of an advantage either way. And since Jobs stated this thing is the best iPod they've ever built, I'd stick with with the iPod line of naming.

In reality though, it is equal part iPod and Mac. Perhaps naming it MacPod would be the way to go.

By: Leigh

Leigh — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:20:41 +0000

Didn't Apple recently try to stop companies from using the term "podcast," essentially arguing that it infringed upon the "iPod" copyright?

Seriously, you can't have it both ways, and Apple has VERY aggressively defended its own copyrights.

Apple's going to lose. Cisco is most definitely in the right.