Citrix lawsuit unlikely

Citrix, a company that sells visual voicemail software for smart phones, has expressed no interest in filing a lawsuit against the Cupertino-based company for using the "visual voicemail" name. The visual voicemail software developed by Citrix serves the same basic function as the identically-named feature built into Apple's recently introduced iPhone, but the company said that the term is generic enough to ignore potential trademark filings. "The term Visual Voicemail is used to describe one of the features of the Citrix Voice Office application suite for users of IP telephones," the company told The Register. "We have been using this term for a number of years as Net6 and then as Citrix. As this term is used generically in the industry by a number of other vendors, we have not registered it as a trademark. Given the value of this capability for users, we support the broad use of the term to increase its visibility with our customers and the broader user community."

Nortel -- a company that includes Citrix's voicemail software with its products -- isn't eager to sue Apple either, but says it is looking into the iPhone patents for potential violations. "There may or may not be some patent infringements," a Nortel spokesman said. "We have our legal staff digging into that."

by MacNN Staff