BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Apple
Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. are stopping their lawsuits over the iPhone and
could go back to solve the issue through negotiations, according to media
reports Friday.
With
Cisco's lawsuit against Apple still remaining pending, the two companies have
agreed to give more time to Apple before it going to respond in court.
They will now negotiate matters
including trademark rights and interoperability, the companies were quoted as
saying in San Jose, California.
The aim is to reach an agreement on
the matter "without fighting the court battle," they said.
Cisco makes routers and switches to
link networks and power the Internet. It has owned the trademark on the name
"iPhone" since 2000. In the spring of 2006, it began shipping its own line of
iPhone-branded Internet-enabled phones.
Last month, Apple announced its cell
phone-iPod-Internet communications device and called it "iPhone."
The next day after the announcement,
negotiations on trademark rights between them ended abruptly. Cisco went to the
court and sued Apple, claiming trademark infringement. Cisco claimed Apple's new
device is "deceptively and confusingly similar" to its own line of wireless
phones.
On its part, Apple said it is
entitled to use the name "iPhone" because its device operates over a cellular
network. Unlike Cisco's phones, it said, the device uses the Internet. Apple
planed to start marketing the product in June as one top leader insisted, "If
Cisco wants to challenge us, we're confident we'll prevail."
Under the
U.S. federal law, two companies may share a trademark as long as their uses are
not confusingly similar.
(Agencies)
Related:
Apple sued by Cisco over iPhone
trademark
BEIJING, Jan. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Cisco Systems Inc.
said on Wednesday that it filed a lawsuit against Apple for infringing its
iPhone trademark after Apple unveiled a multimedia phone of the same name.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California.
Apple renames itself, unveils
iPhone
