Link: Excite Money & Investing.
Well, that was the shortest trademark infringement case in history. A few weeks ago, Cisco sued Apple after Apple introduced its new IPhone, a slick beauty that was hyped to be the next great thing in cell phones. Cisco owned the name, having slapped it on a brain dead VOIP phone a few months earlier, obviously in preparation for just such an Apple move. The parties had allegedly been close to settling the dispute, when Steve Jobs made his ballyhooed announcement. Well, surprise, surprise, the parties have now settled their differences, and will "share" the name, whatever that means. Apparently, this is a rare example of two companies realizing that a RIM/NTP style long litigation would hurt both companies, more that help them. Congrats, guys. Now, the swallows can come back to Capistrano.