Cisco Systems has said that it plans to sue Apple over its use of the iPhone name. It has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

In December last year Linksys, whose parent company is Cisco, brought out a family of products called iPhone. Apple's announcement of the release of a device with the same name prompted a swift response from Cisco, who have owned the iPhone trademark since 2000.

"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," said Mark Chandler, senior vice president of Cisco.

"There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission," he continued.

Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 after buying out Infogear, which previously owned the trademark. Infogear's original filing for the trademark dates to March 1996.

http://www.linksys.com/iPhone/
http://www.apple.com/iphone/

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