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Topic: Apple iPhone

January 12, 2007, 4:09 PM

Posted in: Mobile broadband

Linksys iPhone online banner

Scott Fulton, BetaNews: ZDNet blogger Ed Burnette spoke today with a trademark and patent attorney, whose research has apparently turned up that Cisco failed to file a Declaration of Use document with the US Patent and Trademark Office, necessary for it to extend the use of the "iPhone" trademark it picked up in the acquisition of Linksys, by the November 16, 2005 deadline. "It is possible that the Declaration of Use is defective," the attorney tells Burnette, "as there was no continuous use, and the sample that Cisco submitted was for a product not released until seven months later."

So quite possibly, Apple may have had good reason not to return those licensing papers Cisco says it submitted. If the attorney's claims prove correct, and if Cisco was aware of this deficiency, the question then becomes, was Cisco's offer of trademark licensing to Apple in good faith?