Apple's strong case for ownership of the iPhone brand

This blog post at Nonrandom Chaos explains clearly why just registering a trademark is not enough to guarantee ownership of a brand. Such is the case of the new iPhone from Apple, 'iPhone' being a brand registered by Cisco in 2000. It reminds us that a trademark is worthless without both the will and the way to defend it.

"Their use of the iPhone trademark is amazingly weak. If you asked 1,000 people, how many would know that Cisco made an iPhone? Further, Apple can argue that by not enforcing its trademark against sites like Digg, Reddit, and countless blogs, Cisco did abandon the trademark by allowing it to be associated with a different product. Apple's lawyers will likely request any and all letters of trademark infringement that Cisco sent in response to the thousands upon thousands of postings linking the iPhone with Apple.

A trademark holder is required to defend their trademark against being associated with competing products and companies. Cisco has completely neglected this duty and has probably hoped that the iPhone's association with Apple would help bring them some money - something a trademark holder is not allowed to do."

I still think it's still worth registering a trademark which in NZ costs $100 + GST so that your logo has some protection. Better still get a good online footprint with a strong identity so you can prove prior use/art of a name in case of spurious litigation.

Update: Ziff Davis reports that Cisco lost the rights to the iPhone trademark in 2006.