Cisco Systems sued Apple Inc. in federal court Wednesday, saying the computer maker’s new iPhone violates its trademark.

The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco federal court, came just a day after Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple iPhone in dramatic fashion at a trade show in San Francisco.

But even while Jobs was trumpeting the product during his keynote address to Apple faithful, the matter of the product’s naming had not been resolved behind the scenes between two of the biggest names in Silicon Valley.

San Jose-based Cisco, the world’s largest network-equipment maker, has owned the trademark on the name “iPhone” since 2000, when it acquired InfoGear Technology Corp., which originally registered the name.

And in the spring of last year, Cisco’s Linksys division put the trademark to use and began shipping an Internet phone called “iPhone” that uses the increasingly popular Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. The product was officially launched three weeks ago.

Cisco said Apple had approached the company a number of times over the past few years about a licensing agreement to use the name, and that the talks heated up in the past few weeks.

However, Cisco said communication between the companies ceased Monday, and even while Jobs was holding court at the Macworld Conference and Expo, Apple lawyers had not signed and returned the final contract.

It was at that conference that Jobs introduced Apple’s own iPhone, a “game-changing” touch-screen-controlled cell phone device that plays music, surfs the Web and delivers voicemail and e-mail. The product still needs FCC approval.

Cisco filed the lawsuit Wednesday seeking injunctive relief to prevent Apple from copying Cisco’s iPhone trademark.

Source: AP

U.S.-based Web auction company eBay and PayPal said they expanded their buyer protection program and will now give buyers up to $2,000 of coverage for qualified transactions on eBay.com.

The PayPal buyer protection program covers qualified transactions on eBay for non-delivery of items, and for the delivery of items that are significantly not as described, the companies said in a statement.

Source: Reuters

Microsoft will offer its customer-relationship management product via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, but interested customers will have to wait until summer. The company will announce today it’s starting to preview its next-generation CRM product to business partners, and expects to have it available for purchase in the third quarter.

Source: InformationWeek

Desktop publishing software vendor Adobe released a trio of security patches on Jan. 9, two of which are aimed at fixing a cross-site scripting issue lingering in earlier versions of its Reader and Acrobat products, with the third targeting a new vulnerability identified in its ColdFusion development platform.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company issued two separate bulletins meant to address the XSS flaw present in its Reader and Acrobat applications, including a server-side workaround that promises to prevent exploitation of the problem in versions 7.0.8 and earlier of the two programs.

Adobe has already patched the vulnerability in its latest iteration of the products, specifically Adobe Reader 8.

Source: eWeek

Mozilla developers plan to update Firefox on Feb. 1 with bug fixes to make the browser work better under Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system, which will have been rolled out to consumers two days earlier.

According to notes from the weekly status meeting held Monday, the first of next month is the tentative release date for Firefox 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10, the next security updates to the two versions that Mozilla is supporting. About 100 bugs have already been spotted and quashed, but about 60 remain unpatched, the notes said. Special attention will be paid to bugs involving Windows Vista in the hope that most or all can be fixed before Vista releases to retail.

Source: InformationWeek

One of the most astonishing things about the new Apple iPhone, introduced yesterday by Steve Jobs at the annual Macworld trade show, is how Apple managed to keep it a secret for nearly two-and-a-half years of development while working with partners like Cingular, Yahoo and Google.

Bogus prototypes, bullying the press, stifling pillow talk - all to keep iPhone under wraps. Fortune’s Peter Lewis goes inside one of the year’s biggest tech launches.

Yahoo has bought MyBlogLog, a Web site that builds online communities around the blogs people like to read. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition, announced Jan. 8, fits Yahoo’s strategy to keep its global audience of half a billion people on its Web properties longer by engaging them in social activities. MyBlogLog provides people with the online tools to create a profile and associate it with their blogs, enabling registered users of the site to form communities around those blogs.

Source: InformationWeek

The U.S. agency best known for eavesdropping on telephone calls had a hand in the development of Microsoft’s Vista operating system, Microsoft confirmed Tuesday.

The National Security Agency (NSA) stepped in to help Microsoft develop a configuration of its next-generation operating system that would meet U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) requirements, said NSA Spokesman Ken White.

This is not the first time the secretive agency has been brought in to consult with private industry on operating system security, White said, but it is the first time the NSA has worked with a vendor prior to the release of an operating system.

By getting involved early in the process, the NSA helped Microsoft ensure that it was delivering a product that was both secure and compatible with existing government software, he said.

I wouldn’t be too happy about it, since it is in the best interest of the NSA to leave a security hole so they can tap into systems. For a long time it has been speculated that Windows contain a secret back door so the NSA can snoop around, a claim strongly dismissed by Microsoft.

Time Warner Inc.’s proposed next-generation DVD format, which merges two competing formats on one disc, will be supported by retailers Best Buy Co. Inc., Circuit City Stores Inc. and Web seller Amazon.com studio executives said on Tuesday.

The endorsement for Warner Bros’ solution to the battle for DVD technology between Sony Corp.’s Blu-ray technology and Toshiba Corp.’s HD-DVD could give Warner a leg-up on getting consumers to pay more for new discs that promise better pictures and sound.

Source: Reuters