The battle over the iPhone trademark promises to be messy, to say the least. Flat Planet Phone Company CEO Moshe Maeir dropped me a quick note this morning to tell me to have a look at his blog, where he has posted a scan of a 1996 magazine advertisement showing an internet phone named iPhone. Sure enough, you can see the name iPhone quite clearly on something which looks a lot like one of today’s USB handsets for Skype.
Now, I am not a lawyer, but there are two elements of trademark law that I know of in conflict here. First is the notion that first use allows you to claim a trademark. If you use it first, then it’s yours. The second is the idea that to preserve a trademark, you must use it. I believe that continuous use is the standard, but perhaps a lawyer can chime in and clarify. So there you have it. Others used iPhone first. Cisco even bought an iPhone trademark in the late 1990′s. But Apple argues that they abandoned their claim by not using it.
It’s like watching a couple of dogs take turns marking a hydrant.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
