The court fight that erupted this week between Apple and Cisco is no ordinary trademark dispute. It’s one battle in a long war over the future of phone calls.

When Cisco sued Apple this week over the ‘iPhone’ name, it wasn’t your typical legal move to wring lucrative licensing fees out of a deep-pocketed company. Rather, it was the first salvo in what’s set to become an epic war between the two companies over how consumers talk on the phone.

Here’s where it gets interesting: Today cell phones and Internet phones are essentially different kinds of devices. One day soon, however, these two devices are going to be virtually indistinguishable - and that’s the future Apple and Cisco are fighting over.

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