December 19th, 2006
Three 'iPhone' trademark applications neither Cisco nor Apple owns are awaiting Trademark Office action
EXCLUSIVE: Much fuss is being made of the fact that Cisco-not Apple- owned the iPhone trademark and stemming from that, Cisco has released its iPhone family of VoIP products. That's an example of an iPhone at the top of this post.
So the current spin of this is that Cisco-stealthy they can be- owns the iPhone trademark, and Apple has to choose something else. At the link I just included, my colleague David Berlind is running a poll on that.
But a comb-thru of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office assignments appears to indicate this is only part of the story. There are four "live" trademark assignments for iPhone or derivative term. Only one of these four is owned by Cisco. Each of the other three are being contested.
I will show you these trademark assignments now, and bring you up to speed on Trademark Office actions specific to each. Apologies in advance for the small type: necessary to convert the wide-scale Trademark assignment pages into graphics suitable for display within our format here at ZDNet.
Owned by Teledex, U.S. Trademark 78581563 refers to:
"Telephone that integrates a display and interactive abilities with an IP-based network to deliver both voice communication and graphic-based content and services to hotel guestrooms."
Current status according the Trademark Office, as of 12/13:
"A non-final action has been mailed. This is a letter from the examining attorney requesting additional information and/or making an initial refusal. However, no final determination as to the registrability of the mark has been made."
Previous history of this application:
- 2006-12-13 - NON-FINAL ACTION E-MAILED
- 2006-12-13 - Non-Final Action Written
- 2006-08-16 - Assignment Of Ownership Not Updated Automatically
- 2006-08-09 - Assignment Of Ownership Not Updated Automatically
- 2006-05-23 - LETTER OF SUSPENSION E-MAILED
- 2006-05-23 - Suspension Letter Written
- 2006-04-21 - Teas/Email Correspondence Entered
- 2006-04-12 - Communication received from applicant
- 2006-04-12 - TEAS Response to Office Action Received
- 2006-04-12 - TEAS Change Of Correspondence Received
- 2005-10-13 - Non-final action e-mailed
- 2005-10-13 - Non-Final Action Written
- 2005-09-26 - Assigned To Examiner
- 2005-03-14 - New Application Entered In Tram
And next:
U.S. Trademark 77007808 refers to hand-held unit for playing electronic games.:
As of October 4, this one was classified as a newly received application. No action has been taken yet.
And next, we have the real thing, at least in as far as Cisco is concerned.
U.S Trademark 75076573 refers to "computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks."
But wait a minute. There's also an Extreme iPhone trademark that I presume Cisco might want to know about.
This one, U.S. Trademark 78590673 is owned by White Plains, N.Y.-based Extreme Mobile.
Last eyestrain, I promise:
OK let's see how this one is faring:
On June 3, a non-final action was mailed. This is a letter from the examining attorney requesting additional information and/or making an initial refusal. However, no final determination as to the registrability of the mark has been made.
Here's the history:
- 2006-06-03 - NON-FINAL ACTION E-MAILED
- 2006-06-03 - Non-Final Action Written
- 2006-05-04 - Teas/Email Correspondence Entered
- 2006-04-10 - Communication received from applicant
- 2006-04-10 - TEAS Response to Office Action Received
- 2005-10-13 - Non-final action e-mailed
- 2005-10-13 - Non-Final Action Written
- 2005-10-11 - Assigned To Examiner
- 2005-03-24 - New Application Entered In Tram
While I don't know if Cisco is involved in these challenges to other iPhone trademark attempts, I can't imagine they are too pleased.
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Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
