According to various sources (including "The Mercury News") this morning, the great debate over the name "iPhone" has reach and end. The debacle began late last year, when Cisco released a VOIP device it called the iPhone. The debate peaked again at MacWorld in January, when Steve Jobs marched on stage and presented Apple's long-anticipated product with the same name. It's been pretty harsh on both sides, with ardent Apple defenders decrying the lawsuit as frivolous and claiming that Apple's trademark for the iPhone name abroad was stronger than Cisco's ownership here in the United States. Apple detractors lauded Cisco for standing up to Apple and challenging what they perceived as another example of Apple's legal aggression, especially in the wake of Apple's lawsuits against other companies over use of the word "iPod" in their own product names and trademarks.
All in all, the argument drew a lot of fire and heated emotions, but one thing is absolutely clear: It came to perhaps the most predictable yet anticlimactic conclusion possible, an amicable settlement by both parties.