If you’ll recall, a few months ago Microsoft filed a protest against Apple’s ownership of the “App Store” trademark, on the grounds that the term is too generic and cannot belong to any one company. Many other companies seemingly agreed with Ballmer and Co., and the trademark was also challenged in Europe by Nokia, HTC and Sony Ericsson.
Apparently tired of all this lengthy litigation, Amazon dove right in in mid-March, launching its own Android Appstore. Although the online retailer had truncated “App Store” to “Appstore”, the change wasn’t enough for Apple, which promptly filed suit for trademark infringement.
Amazon attempted to have the case thrown out, on the basis that Steve Jobs himself spoke of App Stores in a generic sense during an earnings call –
“So there will be at least four app stores on Android, which customers must search among to find the app they want and developers will need to work with to distribute their apps and get paid. This is going to be a mess for both users and developers. Contrast this with Apple’s integrated App Store, which offers users the easiest-to-use largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone.”
We’re sure Apple has the best lawyers around fighting its corner, even so the initial filing on the case is nothing short of hilarious. In its submission to the Federal Court in Oakland, California, Apple’s legal team stated that –
“Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words ‘app store’ together denote a store for apps.”
Read through that again. Enjoy the vintage Jobsian flavour.
Let’s remember that it took Apple two attempts to secure the trademark to the term, and Apps had been around for many years by the time Apple entered the fray. As we’ve pointed out before, it’s akin to someone attempting to trademark “grocery store”.
So, will Applehold on to the trademark? The weight of evidence against the Cupertino company, the number of complainants and common sense would seem to dictate no – however this is Apple, so we’ll have to wait and see.
