iPhone This, iPhone That
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 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.
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. According to the lawsuit, Apple’s iPhone is “deceptively and confusingly similar” to Cisco’s _ and, as technology advances, both phones could someday operate on the same networks and assume imilarities in the user interface, hardware or software. What’s Apple have to say about the controversy? Apple says they’re entitled to use the name since each company’s products are materially
different.
