The festering lawsuit between Cisco and Apple over the formers ownership of the iPhone name has been resolved with the two company’s promising to work together and granting them both the right to use the iPhone name for their products.

Cisco had a legal beef with Apple’s new iPhone, claiming it to be a "wilful and malicious" violation of a trademark Cisco has owned since 2000 after acquiring Infogear ; which had trademarked the "iPhone" name way back in 1996.

No financial details of the settlement have been revealed, but the good money is that Cisco is a little richer today than yesterday ; and will be able to market some nice products off the back of the Apple iPhone launch later in the year. Of course it makes life that bit more difficult for the rest of us, who now have to distinguish between Cisco iPhone and Apple iPhone products, but at least Apple won’t have a monopoly on everything cool and phone-like.