Enterprise Pain Points

I was reading an article by Ed Burnette that basically says, Cisco’s rights to the iPhone Trademark are tenuous at best.

Cisco lost rights to iPhone trademark last year, experts say by ZDNet’s Ed Burnette — ZDNet has uncovered new information that shows Cisco may not own the iPhone trademark after all, having abandoned it last spring due to lack of use. If true, this could mean that Apple is free to use the name for its own products.

Wow! I wrote here earlier about Steve Jobs’ Biggest Mistake. Boy was I wrong, Cisco made a whopper!

First they abandoned the iPhone trademark, then they try to co-operate with Apple, then to put the icing on the cake, they slap an “iPhone” sticker on a old box and submitted it to the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Office.

Can you believe it? A Sticker on Box!

In defense of what is rightfully ours, we would have done the same thing. The fatal mistake that Cisco made was trying to shoehorn themselves into the “i” universe. Apple doesn’t need Cisco’s help. And Cisco shouldn’t have imposed. Cisco would have done much better to give up the trademark.

Cisco hadn’t decided on a product strategy, and the CIT200/CIT300 didn’t then or now depend on the “iPhone” moniker. It would have been much better for Cisco to give up the trademark and partner with Apple on Apple-TV v2, Airport Extreme vX, or some other integration hardware of the future.

This probably would have yielded better tangible results than a costly lawsuit and future ridicule, win or lose. That said…we’re still going to need a spread.

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