Whoops!!!

Seems like Apple could have spent a little less time on design and a bit more on their legal department. From Light Reading:

Cisco Files iPhone Suit
Releasing a major downpour on Steve Jobs's iPhone parade, Cisco Systems Inc. said late today that it has filed suit against Apple Inc. for trademark infringement for use of the "iPhone" brand.

Cisco has owned the iPhone marque since it acquired Infogear in 2000 as part of its Linksys division. Infogear originally filed for the trademark on March 20, 1996, according to Cisco.

Linksys began shipping a new line of iPhone products early in 2006 and announced an expanded series of iPhone products in mid-December, just three weeks before the splashy debut of Apple's iPhone yesterday at the Macworld expo in San Francisco. (See You Say iPhone, I Say...?)

Loath to believe that Apple would go forward with the iPhone launch without owning the trademark, most observers assumed that some kind of licensing agreement had already been reached between the two California computing powerhouses. That proved not to be the case; after Jobs's presentation at Macworld on Tuesday, Cisco released a terse, 65-word statement saying that Apple had made "numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years" and that recent discussions between the companies had been "extensive."

"We expect to receive a signed agreement today," the statement concluded. Obviously that hasn't happened.