14 DAY TRIAL // On February 21, 2007, Cisco and Apple, the two giants that have been battling for the use of the iPhone trademark, have finally come to an agreement. They have decided to both have the right to use the trademark in question all over the world and in any manner they will consider.
Also, Cisco and Apple both recognize the trademark rights that have been granted through this settlement and they will, in the future, dismiss any pending actions that refer to this subject.
As a an addition to their agreement, they will have to collaborate for interoperability in security, enterprise communications and consumer areas.
Even if this end result of the trial filed by Cisco on January 10 this year doesn't give Apple exclusivity over the usage of the iPhone moniker, there is something the two companies should be happy about: their iPhones will still be iPhones and all this story has ended non-litigiously.
Now that the things have calmed down, we still can get a big laugh out of it because, if you still remember, John Chambers the CEO of Cisco has asked specifically for "interoperability, or the ability of the Apple phone to work smoothly with the Cisco product". When Apple stubbornly refused the offer Cisco have made them, the lawsuit began.
Now that the trial is over and we know what Apple with have to do so it can use the iPhone trademark without any litigation associated with it, the situation seems at least hilarious. If Apple would have accepted the Cisco proposal in the first place, everything would have been OK. They are OK as we speak but only after a lot of time and money wasted in courts paying the lawyers to settle a fight that should have never started in the first place.
No other details of the agreement between Cisco and Apple were released, the two companies' officials didn't want to comment on the present situation during their very short joint statement so, until other information related to this subject will reach surface, be sure to check back because we'll keep you posted.