The folks at Apple have had a history of fighting some pretty nasty legal battles over the years and now it seems the doors are open on another case.

Cisco has announced a lawsuit against Apple over the use of the name "iPhone'.

Cisco obtained a trademark for iPhone in 2000 after acquiring Infogear, which owned the name before. Apple is dismissing Cisco's claims as "silly" and "tenuous at best".

Apple spokesman Alan Hely states "We think Cisco's trademark lawsuit is silly. There are already several companies using the name iPhone for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) products. We are the first company to ever use the iPhone name for a cell phone, and if Cisco wants to challenge us on it we are very confident we will prevail."

Cisco senior vice-president and general counsel Mark Chandler replied "Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name."

I expect Apple will indeed prevail. Apple has already captured the imaginations of so many with the device and the name is now worth the fight. I don't think Apple Phone would have been a poor choice for a name and would have enforced the branding, but iMac, iLife, iPhoto, iTunes, iPod et al lay the foundation for the use of the term iPhone.

Labels: Apple, Cisco, iPhone, lawsuit, trademark