Cisco has barely used iPhone name

HACKS AT ZDNet imagine they have worked out how Apple will take the iPhone name off Cisco in its trademark dispute with the outfit.

According to information from the US Patent and Trademark office, the name was abandoned in late 2005/early 2006 because Cisco was not using it.

The Cisco iPhone trademark was registered 11/16/1999 (Reg. No. 2293011). To keep the trademark registration active, you have to file a Declaration of Use before the sixth anniversary of the registration date. In this declaration you say that you have been using the name continuously for six years.

Cisco filed this a bit late, but as evidence that it was still using the name supplied a picture of the iPhone box it was selling.

The picture shows a box for the Linksys CIT200 Cordless Internet Telephony Kit, with a sticker showing the word "iPhone™" stuck to the back, outside the shrink wrap. The front of the box is not shown, but it doesn't appear that the word iPhone appears anywhere else on the box, or the manual.

According to ZDNet this means that Cisco did not actively offer a product named "iPhone" between 1999 and December 2006. However it kept control of the name because it had been approached by Apple to ask if it could have the name.

If Apple can prove in a federal court that there was no continuous use, then Cisco's registration could be cancelled. µ