It sure looks like Steve Jobs and Apple have stepped in a big ol' pile of industrial-strength doo-doo with Cisco.  You can read the complaint here.

Apparently, a little outfit named InfoGear designed and built an early Internet telephone back in 1996, and registered the mark 'iPhone' to describe this product.  Cisco acquired InfoGear in June 2000, and consequently acquired the rights to the 'iPhone' trademark (the registration of the mark was granted by the U.S. PTO in 1999).

Cisco and Apple have been in on-again off-again discussions regarding licensing or purchasing of the 'iPhone' trademark since 2001, so Apple can't really claim that they didn't know.  Cisco has a significant presence in the VoIP telephony market, so Apple can't really argue that they aren't competing on Cisco's turf.

Dunno what Apple was thinking, but as others have observed, this sure doesn't look good coming on the heels of the whole 'backdated stock options' scandal.

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