Cisco Licenses iOS Name To Apple

John Brownlee ()

Cisco Licenses iOS Name To Apple

When Steve Jobs announced yesterday that they were finally taking the “phone” out of the iPhone OS and rebranding it “iOS,” I breathed a sigh of relief: even before the iPad, branding an operating system that runs on non-phone hardware like the iPod Touch always seemed confusing, and if rumors of a new Apple TV are correct, Apple’s plans for iOS are far bigger than the smartphone arena.

But I also met the announcement with a bit of a “Whuh?” Cisco has owned the trademark for iOS for almost two decades: it’s what their routers run on. Then again, Cisco also owned the iPhone trademark, and Apple came to a deal with them on that one back in 2007: they must have worked out a deal.

They did. According to a Cisco blog post, “Cisco has agreed to license the iOS trademark to Apple for use as the name of Apple’s operating system for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.  The license is for use of the trademark only and not for any technology.”

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As of this moment, there’s no news if Apple reached a similar licensing agreement with the Greek government, who certainly could use the money right about now.

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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  • Billgohan

    “As of this moment, there’s no news if Apple reached a similar licensing agreement with the Greek government, who certainly could use the money right about now.”
    We are not that much desparate haha!

    -User from greece-

  • charli

    Cisco pulled a crap move with iphone trademark. they had let it sit until it was lapsed and was in a limited grace period when they found out Apple was going to apply for the now free for all trademark. Then just a couple of days before the last chance they announced a product with the name so they could make claim on the trademark, but didn’t release it for a good six months. The courts determined it was a clear stunt just to screw Apple but Apple was nice enough to share.

    Cisco decided this time to be the cool guys and as long as it was for the iphone etc and not routers etc why not let them use the name. Particularly since trademark law could side with Apple (non competing products can sometimes be allowed to have the same name). This way they get some money off it, even if they don’t actually deserve it.

    If Cisco had said no, Apple likely would have just left the name alone. or thunk up something else. No big deal