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Cisco lost rights to iPhone trademark last year

January 15, 2007
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Moldova.ORG -- The late dispute between Apple and Cisco seems to come to its end.

According to information from the US Patent and Trademark office, the name iPhone 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. The sixth anniversary would have been 11/16/2005.

Cisco did not file the Declaration of Use by 11/16/2005, which if they had been using the trademark would seemingly have been easy to do. However, the USPTO gives you an extra six months grace period, if you pay an extra fee. This grace period would have expired 5/16/2006. Cisco filed a Declaration of Use on 5/4/2006 which kept their registration active. Had they not filed, their registration would have been canceled.

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 and Apple could go on with this name for his future products.

 

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