Well it seems that Cisco and Apple are not about to take the “iPhone” trademarked dispute to court just yet. Both have returned to the negotiating table to see if an agreement can be reached. Apple was in negotiations 2 years before Apple released the iPhone, but could not wrangle the trademark away from Cisco.

Apple could not reach a deal and Steve Jobs went ahead with the announcement of the iPhone regardless of the threat of legal action. Cisco responded with a lawsuit soon after. Cisco Systems has owned the iPhone trademark since 2000 and in early 2006 began to ship their Internet enabled phones.

Trademarks are allowed to be shared if they are not easily confued. However, in this case we are dealing with two phones and it could be argued they could be confusing to the average consumer.

Cisco seems to have taken the dispute to a more comical level. They took out a full page ad announcing their iPhone and clearly displayed the registered trademark symbol near the name. It had two woman sitting back to back one holding the phone and the other using - ironically - an apple iPod.

[via iht.com]