JeremyHelms

Cisco takes Apple to court over iPhone name

January 16, 2007 at 2:53 pm

Ok, so I found my way to this site called AdLand by a post my famous friend J David made on his site. First off, awesome site — some of the best ad content ever!

Now, this brings me to the subject at hand which may be old news to some of you but oh well... I found a spoof of the iPhone on the AdLand site which had some interesting info about Cisco owning the name iPhone. Yep, Apple is being sued by Cisco — is Cisco wrong? Links galore — and if you google this, you'll find tons more.

So, here's the scoop: Apple launched the new iPhone using a trademarked name belonging to Cisco which is in use by Linksys, their consumer division, for its line of VOIP-based wireless phones. Cisco decides to sue Apple for trademark infringement, only to find that they in fact may no longer own the trademark.

Here's where the story gets twisty; In the lawsuite, Cisco claims Apple is persuing the iPhone trademark under an alter ego entity named Ocean Telecom Services LLC. Ocean Telecom's corporation registration places it in Wilmington, DE — however their website puts them in the UK. Furthermore there is no Ocean Telecom listed in the white pages for Wilmington Delaware, nor in the Better Business Bureau database, and that address is registered to a company named "CT Corporation" which turns out to be a company acting as a registered agent.

So, like Ed Burnette said in his article, it appears somebody set up a corporation that exists only on paper, hired CT Corporation to act as their registered agent so they could get official mail, and then used the paper corporation to file a trademark application for the "iPhone" name.

And, this Apple-trademark issue isn't new, it has apprently been going on since the third quarter of 2006.

To check out the actual trademark application details, check out the USPTO electronic trademark search and lookup "iphone" using the Basic search form.

Well, [I guess] as they say in business: "bad publicity is still good publicity."

About the author

I am Jeremy Helms, 28 year old graphic designer, web designer, site architect, programmer, copywriter and ambitious entrepreneur. I was born and live in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. This site is my personal periodical for design, code, business and other topics. When I'm not glued to the computer, I enjoy music, movies, late-night television and sometimes a good night out on the town with friends.

I began professional work in the IT industry 13 years ago in September, 1995. I started my first business in 1998, incorporated my second business in 2001, my third in 2002 and my fourth and most recent in 2006. I am a sponge — I am constantly exploring and learning — about business, design, programming, history, society, and whatever pops up on blogs across the web.

• I have been happily married for 5 years; together for a total of 10 years
• I am a father of two boys; Junior (born 02-06-07 @ 6:17PM — 8lbs 13oz.) and Jedi (born 05-06-08 @ 12:39PM — 8lbs 4oz.)
• I am a free and accepted Master Mason, belonging to Florida Alpha Lodge No. 172
• I have two prize Labrador Retrievers (Buck & Brody)
• I graduated from Choctawhatchee Senior High School
• Some of my favorite movies include Snatch, L4yer Cake, Blade Runner, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, THX 1138, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, the Star Wars hexology and Ronin