Briefly: iPod ads, Cisco on iPhone lawsuit
updated 02:15 pm EST, Thu January 11, 2007
Cisco on iPhone lawsuit
Briefly:: Apple has posted the new iPod television ads, which debuted earlier this week during Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote and feature Flathead by The Fratellis; the ads use a variation of the traditional Apple silhouette animation and were broadcast during the keynote..... Cisco says that its recent lawsuit over the iPhone trademark is not over money, product/services, or, royalties, but because Apple flatly refused to come to an agreement with the company: "We wanted to make sure to differentiate the brands in a way that could work for both companies and not confuse people, since our products combine both web access and voice telephony. That’s it. Openness and clarity. This lawsuit is about Cisco's obligation to protect its trademark in the face of a willful violation. Our goal was collaboration. The action we have taken today is about not using people’s property without permission."... In addition to our own show floor images, one website has posted QuickTime VR panoramas from Expo.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2006
oh jeesh!
Branding and Property are vague and complex issues. Cisco knows it's not as simple as "we bought it first, so it belongs to us alone".
The letter "i" is becoming as ubiquitous as "e" became with e-mail. And even considering such, one could still make a case that the phenomenon is more a result of Apple's brand property and not Cisco. Whether one would win that case remains to be seen :)