Is this TM Infringement?

[D'same]

Suppose I reg a domain name with like bestiphone.com would I be infringing the TM of the company who created the "iphone" tag. I have seen many websites with names such as XPthis.com and thatXP.com and they have been around for sometime.

Need some clarification.....

Cheers!

[whydna]

It is TM infringement either way. It just depends whether the TM holder wants to go after you or not.

[Gerry]

It is TM infringement either way. It just depends whether the TM holder wants to go after you or not.

Yeah, you might be further down the list. Cisco is suing Apple over the iPhone name. Just depends if Apple needs to come after you to help pay the legal fees.

[D'same]

Thanks for clarification guys...was just using "iphone" as an example...funny though I have seen TMs that are everyday words in other cultures....or slang terms.

How can you TM these? Don't seem right IMHO.

[Gerry]

Phone or telephone is purely generic.

If you trademark iPhone for exactly that...a trademarded brand or service (letter "i" being understood as "internet") followed by the word phone, then you can trademark that brand or concept.

Cisco happens to own the rights to the TM iPhone since 2000, I think. Cisco also launched their own VOiP service "iPhone" three weeks before Apple came out with their new product, the iPhone.

This was a real bonehead move. Apple probably wanted to keep their R&D so secretive and the launch under wraps that they weren't even paying attention to what was going on around them in the industry.

All of this may play out to be rather interesting. There is a web site www.iphone.com. The WHOIS information is DOMAIN BY PROXY which means private listing. I certainly say I can not blame them. The curious thing is this domain name has been registered since 1995, well before Cisco and Apple came along with name iPhone. Unless, this is the company that Cisco bought out in 2000 to gain the rights of the trademark and the use for iphone, although this particular site in its present state has been online since 2003. Plus, they offer Linksys routers, not Cisco, with their products (although Linksys my be made by Cisco but rebranded).

The current site is from what I can see selling a service. This would most likely fall under the SM (Service Mark) category rather than a TM (Trade Mark) category. My guess is no matter what, they would probably unwillingly get dragged into this mess.

Regardless, this Cisco/Apple thing may be a real slugfest.

[labrocca]

iphone by Apple has already renamed itself to iTouch Mobile. So that's a dead issue.

As for you question. If the site XPthis.com operated by unfairly infringing on anothers mark then they can problems. I am not sure Windows has XP actually TM'd. I think it's the full Windows XP. However infringement requires confusingly similar. So if MS can convice the court the XPthis is confusingly similar and operates in bad-faith then it's going to be a problem.

TM infringement rarely gets to court as opposed to being settled out of court by the parties.

[Gerry]

iphone by Apple has already renamed itself to iTouch Mobile.

Now there is talk that the iTouch was a bogus story. Can any one confirm from more than one source that it is not true or true?

[Banned: domain newbie]

Must be bogus, its still iphone http://www.apple.com/iphone/

But how come ebay cant get hold of ebay.cz (owned by some scammers at one.cz)

its really weird