Elon May Have a Huge Issue Because Microsoft Owns the “X” Trademark

Storksforlegs@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 344 points –
Elon May Have a Huge Issue Because Microsoft Owns the “X” Trademark
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Cisco owned the "iPhone" trademark and was actively using it to sell products. Weirder things have happened.

Apple simply started using it and told Cisco, "Make me stop".

To which Cisco replied "okay" and forced Apple to agree to an unknown but likely ludicrous licensing fee.

Twitter got Apple money right now? Because even Elons billions aint shit compared to Microsofts literal trillions.

Twitter got Apple money right now?

Twitter's got so little money that they can't even pay all their bills, lol.

Honestly I think they rolled out the new branding without finishing it because they can't afford proper designers or project managers. The site still says "Twitter" all over the place and they can't even trademark the new logo.

Apparently they've hired an intern level designer then fired them after 2.5 weeks, once they handed in the design proposal.

Microsoft doesn't have trillions. Where did you get that from?

Microsoft is a 2.6T dollar company…

Market capitalization means that every share of MSFT combined at the current price is worth $2.6T. The company has $100B cash on hand. That's actual cash and investments that could be easily converted to cash. Substantially less than $2 trillion.

Yeah, but by that logic, Musk isn't a billionaire either.

And as a public company, Microsoft has a lot more options to leverage their equity than a private company or individual does.

Musk owns stock worth billions. Stock is a liquid asset, meaning he has billions in liquid assets. The $2.6T market cap is what the public shares of MSFT are "worth." They are owned mostly by people and orgs other than Microsoft, meaning that value is not an asset to Microsoft.

Your comment is low-effort. Don't do that.

Isn't that still a fuck-ton more than what any of their competitors have at their disposal?

Actually iOS, not iPhone. I think if it were iPhone itself, an actually marketed product from either Apple or Cisco, it would have ended a bit differently. But in both cases, it was just iOS, the operating system of the marketed products.

In both cases, iOS was a selling point of the product, but not the product itself.

Huh, I never heard of that one, I knew they licensed iOS.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/08/cisco_licenses_ios_name_to_apple_screenshot_shows_iwork_on_iphone

I'm surprised Cisco let iPhone go so easily, considering the immediate popularity of the brand when Apple released theirs.

Apple and Cisco settled their dispute on February 20, 2007. Both companies will be allowed to use the "iPhone" name in exchange for "exploring interoperability" between Apple's products and Cisco's services and other unspecified terms

Seriously, they let it go for nothing. When did Apple and Cisco ever integrate products?...

Edit: Also it says they're both allowed to use it. I would love to see Cisco come out with an "iPhone" in 2023 lol

Honestly, there would probably be far more backlash against them than benefit. But it would be hilarious.

I wonder if they got some help with early app development, or something. I've always avoided Cisco, so I don't know if they offered any mobile management or monitoring tools early on.