IPhone litigation

There are already a few products called the iPhone released around the world. There are already a couple of trademark infringements regarding the name of the new product.

Trademark status in the US
Right until 8pm the night before the keynote address, Cisco Systems was in talks with Apple and was close to finalize the deal to use the name, instead for interoperability of products from both Apple and Cisco. Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 for their VoIP Linksys products. Apple, on the other hand, from the very beginning was stating, that their product won't have any VoIP capabilities. They wanted it to be a mobile phone from the very beginning.

As Red Herring reports, the iPhone trademark could cost Apple as much as $325 million dollars per year. This amount of money represents around 15% of Apple's revenue in 2006.

Ocean Telecom Services LLC
As Cisco states, Apple created a phony company called "Ocean Telecom Services LLC", which is doing business in Trinidad and Tobago. The company filled an Intent to Use the brand name iPhone on September 2006. The priority date for it was March 2006, based on the filling of the same name in Trinidad and Tobago. When Apple registered the iPhone name in Australia, their priority date was the same, based on the very same filling.

Ocean Telecom's address (based in Wilmington) is owned by "CT Corporation", a registered agent which could forward every legal document to Apple.

Trademark status in Europe
Trade mark specialist Lee Curtis of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, suggests that Cisco may lose the iPhone trademark in Europe, because the trademark wasn't officially used in Europe during the last five years. A German law firm, CMS, already filled a request to revoke the rights to use the iPhone name by Cisco. If the court would decide against Cisco, the iPhone trademark would go Apple, which is next in line to register the trademark.

Trademark status in Canada
Comwave Telecom Inc. owns the IPhone brand name in Canada, and uses it for their VoIP services since 2004. It even has a wireless device called IPhone Mobile. Yuval Barzakay, Comwave's president and chief executive, commented in a press release:
 * "There's no confirmed reports that Apple will launch IPhone in Canada, and there's no trademark designation on their IPhone logo. So we're not quite sure where they're headed with that."

Trademark status in Australia
Apple registered the iPhone trademark in September 2006, based on a priority date of March 2006 (from a filling in Trinidad and Tobago).

Cisco doesn't want any money but compatibility to Apples iPhone
Cisco manager Mark Chandler talks in his blog on about the legal dispute about the rights on the trademark iPhone. Therefore it isn't all about the money but Cisco wants cooperation. Future phones from Cisco daughter Linksys, which actually holds the rights on the trademark iPhone, should be compatible to Apples mobile phone.