Cisco Systems and Apple have settled their tiff over the iPhone name, announcing plans to share the name--meaning both companies are free to use the iPhone trademark on their products worldwide. Cisco sued Apple in a California district court in January and sought an injunction against Apple. Cisco said it owned the iPhone name after it bought Infogear in 2000, and last spring it put the name to use by shipping a VoIP phone called iPhone. Infogear filed for the trademark in 1996. Apple is now permitted to use the iPhone name, and both companies said they will investigate wide-ranging interoperability between Cisco and Apple products in the areas of security, consumer and business communications.
The two didn't give any more specific details on what type of products we could see, but analysts speculate the combination could actually be a powerful one since Cisco dominates the network services world and Apple has significant expertise in user interfaces and customer experience. It's just a matter of the two being willing to work together after butting heads over the iPhone name.
For more about the settlement between Apple and Cisco:
- check out this article from AP