Maybe they were thinking they could buy the name from cisco, which is what happened pretty soon after. Have you considered the possibility that Apple had talked to cisco quite a bit prior to announcing the iPhone, and knew they were going to be able to acquire the name, and the subsequent "noise" cisco made about suing apple was a negotiating tactic?
Their agreement was pretty mild-- cisco wanted apple to support its VPN technology on the iPhones which they did.
Apple generally, if it finds someone else owns a name it wants that doesn't already infringe on one of Apple's names, buys the name from them.
It doesn't just copy the name and wait to be sued, as Amazon did here.
Their agreement was pretty mild-- cisco wanted apple to support its VPN technology on the iPhones which they did.
Apple generally, if it finds someone else owns a name it wants that doesn't already infringe on one of Apple's names, buys the name from them.
It doesn't just copy the name and wait to be sued, as Amazon did here.