Apple's supposed release of a combined music player and telephone drawing on its iPod branding has been a staple of the blogosphere for months now, with January's MacWorld conference pegged as the most likely launch event.

However, Linksys' announcement of a new range of VOIP phones branded iPhone shows that at least one element of the plan was always unlikely -- Apple doesn't own the name.

Cisco, Linksys' parent company, has owned the trademark on iPhone name since 1996, in the category of "computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerised global information networks". While that doesn't sound exactly like the alleged Apple iPhone, it's undoubtedly close enough to force Apple's branding team to come up with a different label if it is indeed going to release a phone.

Cisco isn't even the only player on the iPhone block. Teledex holds a trademark on the name iPhone for hotel room IP handsets, while Xtreme Mobile owns the trademark Xtreme IPhone.

The Linksys iPhone family includes seven different models of wireless VOIP handsets, variously able to work with a range of online communication services including Skype and Yahoo! Messenger.
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