Apple renames iPhone/Pad/Pod OS iOS, with help from Cisco

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 08 June 2010 10:58

IT Industry - Deals

With the release of version 4 for the operating system for its handheld devices, Apple has renamed it iOS.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the new iOS name at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco saying it did not make sense to call the operating system the iPhone OS, given that was also used in the iPad and iPod Touch.

However IOS, not iOS, has for 20 years been the acronym for the operating system that runs on millions of routers and switches from networking giant Cisco. Versions of it power Cisco devices that range from routers in the offices of small businesses to multi-gigabit routers at the core of the Internet.

Cisco announced that it had agreed to licence the trademark to Apple for use in the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Macworld (US) quoted Michael Atkins, an intellectual property partner with the Graham & Dunn law firm in Seattle, saying "I don't know that an operating system for the iPad and the new iPhone would fall within the description of goods that Cisco had explained in its [trademark] registrations," he said. "I think it's more of an effort to avoid a fight down the road."

Apple has already had one run in with Cisco. Cisco owned the trademark iPhone long before Apple came out with its product,

Cisco had acquired the trademark in 2000 when it bought Infogear, and had revived the name for a range of cordless VoIP phones sold under its Linksys brand. The dispute was settled out of court

That iPhone made its debut in Australia in mid 1999, courtesy of Ericsson and Strathfield Car Radio And it sounded remarkably similar to the Apple product!

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