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Amazon Responds To "App Store" Lawsuit From Apple

Posted by samzenpus on from the make-up-your-own-name dept.

tekgoblin writes "Apple had filed a lawsuit in March against Amazon's use of 'App Store' in their newly launched Amazon AppStore. Apple had informed Amazon that using the term 'App Store' was unlawful because they owned the rights to the term itself. In their response Amazon indicates that the term 'App Store' is too generic for Apple to lay claim to the name itself."

18 of 414 comments (clear)

  1. Dear God... by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For the love of sanity, please let Amazon win this one. I don't know if I want to live in a country where justice is so blind that it allows trademarking the name of the category a thing belongs to as the proper name of that thing.

    --
    "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    1. Re:Dear God... by recoiledsnake · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You mean like things like "Windows" right?

      Please, stop making absurd comparisons. "Windows" doesn't really describe the product itself. If MS trademarked "Operating System" and then sued Red Hat for calling their OS "Red Hat Operating System", then it would a similar comparison. i.e Windows is not a generic term for the product itself, unlike "app store".

      --
      This space for rent.
    2. Re:Dear God... by spun · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, "Windows," as applied to computing, is not generic at all. "App" can only be applied to computing, and in that context, it is quite generic. A better example would be if Microsoft had named Windows, "Operating System."

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    3. Re:Dear God... by jmac_the_man · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can still use the UI elements called Windows. You can still call them Windows. You can't call your operating system Windows. That's wildly different.

    4. Re:Dear God... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Presumably the action will be on the question of whether "App" is a protectable term.

      Don't be silly. I'm sure Apple is objecting to the use of the word "Store". :-)

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    5. Re:Dear God... by cpu6502 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      >>>I'm sure Apple is objecting to the use of the word "Store". :-)

      Your joke is not as funny as you believe. Amazon was sued in the mid-90s for calling itself "the world's largest bookstore". Barnes&Noble claimed that it isn't a store, therefore should not use that term, and the idiotic courts agreed, forcing amazon to drop the label. (In my opinion, a place where you store books, food, widgets, et cetera can call itself "a store".)

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
  2. Re:Android is the real target by sconeu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    through the use and abuse of stupid patents.

    You do realize that this is about Trademarks and not Patents, right?

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  3. Re:uhhh by click2005 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Amazon quotes Apple chief executive Steve Jobs in the filing referring to the iTunes App Store as "the easiest to use, largest app store in the world".

    http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/mac-inspector-blog/2046035/amazon-files-response-apples-app-store-suit

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    I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
  4. Re:uhhh by dmbasso · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And the sad thing is that this comes from the company that patented the "genius" 1-click buying.

    --
    `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
  5. Re:In this case Apple's position is sane by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 3, Informative

    People have been using the term "app" as an abbreviation for "application" for years and years. The term in no way originates with Apple.

    --
    "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
  6. Re:In this case Apple's position is sane by Your.Master · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The term app was used as an abbreviation for application long before Apple added it to the iPhone. Google Apps existed before the iPhone. Slashdot had discussions about Apps.

    The term "app" seems generic because it's generic, not because it's popular. Windows does not sound generic to me when talking about Operating Systems. Kleenex does, I grant, because "facial tissue" is not a term I ever learned; but this isn't like Kleenex at all. Nobody is claiming that the term "clean" comes from Kleenex. It's more like somebody today trying to defend a trademark on the term "boxing gloves" because before 2011 nobody used the term "boxing" for anything but packing and unpacking. It's just not true.

    Also, do people seriously use "app" for "appetizers"? Or is there some other reason you would use app in a restaurant?

  7. Re:Container Store? by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am against a sloppy application of the law.

    The fact that a certain sort of nonsense was tolerated before really doesn't matter.

    This isn't about being "against trademarks". Thats just stupid bad rhetoric.

    This is about being against trademarks that fail the basic rules for being an enforceable trademark.

    Being against this sort of nonsense is like advocating that the speed limit be enforced.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  8. Did Steve Jobs make Amazon's case for them? by Dialecticus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to a related article at The Register, as recently as October of 2010, Steve Jobs himself publicly called Apple's app store "the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone." So it would appear that even Cupertino is using the phrase app store generically in reference to its competitors. I'd call this tidbit a crushing blow to Apple's case.

    Thanks, Steve! We all app-reciate it.

    1. Re:Did Steve Jobs make Amazon's case for them? by Yakasha · · Score: 3, Informative

      According to a related article at The Register, as recently as October of 2010, Steve Jobs himself publicly called Apple's app store "the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone." So it would appear that even Cupertino is using the phrase app store generically in reference to its competitors. I'd call this tidbit a crushing blow to Apple's case. Thanks, Steve! We all app-reciate it.

      "Genericizing" a trademark after the fact doesn't invalidate it, unless the owner fails to enforce it. Since the trademark was applied for in 2008, what Steve said in 2010 is irrelevant, since Apple can do what it wants with its own trademark and is indeed trying to enforce it.

  9. Re:Just like Windows, apples and amazons by goombah99 · · Score: 3

    Apple should open an Apple store in Belem do Para (Brazil) which is a major city at the mouth of the Amazon. It would be the Apple Amazon store.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  10. Re:Just like Windows, apples and amazons by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Windows is not a generic term when applied to an OS, because the word "windows" does not denote "OS". It denotes a completely different thing. Therefore, using this name to name an OS makes it an enforceable trademark. Same logic applies to Amazon.

    On the other hand, "App Store" is a generic term that describes an application store. Consequently, it cannot be trademarked as a name of an application store. In a similar vein, Microsoft cannot trademark "OS" as a name of its operating system, and Amazon cannot trademark "online store" as a name for its online store.

  11. Re:In this case Apple's position is sane by asynchronous13 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You are barking up the wrong tree. You are correct that Apple did not invent the term "App", but that has no bearing on the validity of the trademark.

    "Open Happiness" is trademarked by Coca-Cola. Certainly no one claims that either word was invented by the company. PespiCo would be legally liable for using that phrase in an ad-campaign, however, a company in a different market (Dell for example) could probably use "Open Happiness" for computer sales without issue.

    Are you familiar with "The Container Store". It's a store where you buy, wait for it, containers!! And yes, "The Container Store" is trademarked. No other company selling containers can use that name. Similarly, Apple was granted a trademark for "App Store". Just because App Stores have more competition than Container Stores at the moment does not make the trademark any less valid.

  12. Re:Appz? by exomondo · · Score: 3, Informative

    In case you didn't notice, Appz is rather unlike App. Also that domain is based around the concept of "Warez", more than a shortened form of Application.

    In any case the idea and name AppStore was around before Apple's App Store and was also a place to buy Applications from.