Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Judge Dismisses Apple Trademark Claims Against Amazon's Appstore
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Its not in debate whether Apple made the term more popular than it used to be. What's in discussion here is that there seem to be people under the false impression that Apple invented the word app. Or for some misguided reason believe that Apple deserves rights to it because they made it popular. I've seen that a lot on here.
"Apple did this first!"
"No they didn't, here's a documented source showing someone did it before them
"Yea well Apples is much better!"
It seems there is a legion of armchair lawyers here who seem to believe all you have to do is improve on someone's design to invalidate it.
If it didn't exist before them, sure they should. There are so many other names you can have: "App Market", "App Source", "App Shop", "Download Store", etc. But I kinda doubt Apple was the first to have an App Store.
Think about other companies with generic, copyrighted names:
Tiger Direct (sued Apple b/c of Mac OS X Tiger and lost)
Tuff
Bounty
Microsoft's OS "Windows", word processor "Word", and office suite "Office", all single English words
Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, and others that are very common Japanese names
Spumoni's and other Italian restaurants are just "(Italian name)'s"
----------
Yeah, exactly. I think "Windows" and "App Store" are both protectable.
Nope, your the one struggling to understand. Don't bother, your barking up the wrong tree, but it seems it will amuse you for hours....days...months...
Right.
So if people were generally to call something, for example, a "table", then it would make a trademark on the word "table" (as used to identify any certain seller of tables) so weak as to be indefensible.
Just like "App". And especially like "App" when app is used as a descriptive modifier, as in "App Launcher" or "App Store".
Face it: Trying to enforce a trademark on App Store is like trying to do the same with Toy Store or Grocery Store.
Not exactly, because "Toy" and "Grocery" are actual nouns in the English language, while "App" is not.
But it's pretty close though. I don't think Apple should have a trademark on the term, but they are responsible for it being popular right now, so much that's it's now a generic term that everybody says.
"Cola" is considered a generic term and isn't trademarked by Coca-Cola, even though they popularized the term and anybody can call a drink a Cola now.
That's a good reference. I think it is true that many people don't really know the purpose of trade and service marks, the different strengths of various categories of marks, or the application of similar marks in disparate industries.
The Wiki article explains it all.
This is the point that Microsoft was trying to make... "App" at that point has become common language to describe the programs on mobile devices.
In Eastern Airlines v NY Airlines, even though Eastern Airlines had an air-shuttle called Shuttle, it was deemed that 'shuttle' has become a common used term for an any air shuttle and not specifically identifying Eastern's air shuttle.
.
And what menu do you go to when you want to launch them?
The PROGRAMs menu!
Just because Apple have always kept software in an Applications folder and users link to said folder as a dock item or in the case of the classic Mac OS, as a desktop shortcut, doesn't mean the place, folder, menu or otherwise that you go to on a Mac isn't called Applications while other platforms, mobile or otherwise, have kept them in menus labelled Programs.
It's the fact that for years, Macs have had Applications, Windows has had Programs. They're the same thing, it's just what they chose to refer to them as. The popularity of the term "Apps" or "App" has come about from smartphones, not desktop OS's because "Apps" are just a more snappy sounding term than "Progs". It's just easy to forget that in the smartphone world, they're following Apple's lead, not innovating.
Last edited:
Yes! It's as dumb as it would be if you allowed gas station or gen (general) store get trademarked.
A basic item or service used in a name should not be trademarkable.
Gun Store, Gas Station, Auto Sales etc. should all be considered too generic to receive trademarks. App is nothing more than the short version of application just as gas is to gasoline.
The fact that it's in common language now doesn't mean that a company can't be responsible for the popularization of the term.
Think of: Aspirin, Band-Aid, Cellophane, Dry ice, Escalator, Heroin, Kleenex, Linoleum, Thermos, Videotape, Yo-yo, Zip code and Zipper.
Those are all trademarks popularized by companies now used in common language.
Heck, I'm not even saying Apple should be granted a trademark like the ones I listed, just that they have the credit for the term being in common language now.
And those are all known *genericized* trademark. (that's why "Escalator" was lost and Westinghouse was allow to use it).
BUT in the case of App store, it the Apple App store also sells apps.
If Apple sold cars and called their store "App Store" AND it was identified with Apple only, they would have a much stronger case.
"... even when they become identified with a first user, would grant the owner of the mark a monopoly, since a competitor could not describe his goods as what they are" ... Although I find this a weak (since App Shop, App Marketplace could be used) but valid argument when combined with such generic words.
And it doesn't matter a bit if the popularizer didn't trademark the word. While "apps" might've been more commonly used amongst Apple products, you see it referenced in every OS that's come out since at least the mid 90's. Apple might've helped bolster it's usage, but it doesn't change the fact it's been in the lexicon for at least 15 years now.
And since no one company owns or has exclusive rights to the word "apps", you could easily say "app store" is a generic term.
People are forgetting, APPle made the term "App" (a shortening of the word "application") commonplace with their "There's an app for that." marketing campaign.
People are so stupid these days, I'd guess over half the population probably has *no mental connection* anymore with the word "app" to the original word "application." I would venture this is largely Apple's doing, and they deserve the marketing credit and trademark associated.
I know this is slightly different, but just because 9x% of the population says "kleenex" to refer to booger paper (due to Kleenex's own successful marketing) doesn't mean they aren't entitled to the trademark.
"App store" is even more so an Apple-ism, like it or not.
People are so stupid these days, I'd guess over half the population probably has *no mental connection* anymore with the word "app" to the original word "application." I would venture this is largely Apple's doing, and they deserve the marketing credit and trademark associated.
I know this is slightly different, but just because 9x% of the population says "kleenex" to refer to booger paper (due to Kleenex's own successful marketing) doesn't mean they aren't entitled to the trademark.
"App store" is even more so an Apple-ism, like it or not.
Yep. You can be granted a trademark for a generic term, if you make it popular enough to give it secondary meaning, which is sort of what Apple did here. Google (or at least their trends) even agrees that no one cared about an "App Store" which is the trademarked term, not "App", before the App Store was introduced.
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=app%20store
I know, I know, the majority here don't agree with the law or what they imagine the law to be.
People definitely used the abbreviation "app" well before Apple launched their "App Store".
MS has always used both "Programs" and "Applications". It seems they use the term "program" mostly for the executables and use "application" to refer to the whole package, i.e. executables + resources.
The problem with Apple's "App Store" isn't only that it's generic but also that it's descriptive. None of the examples you mention are descriptive.
"Windows" isn't a term that describes an operating system but "app store" IS a term that describes an app store, a platform for selling app(lication)s. Apple having a trademark for "App Store" is as if Microsoft named their operating system "Operating System" and got that trademark.
On a side note, as far as I know Microsoft have never tried to stop other OS makers from referring to the rectangular visual representations of applications in their OS as "windows" even though they have that trademark. Their trademark for the non-descriptive use of the term as a name doesn't cover the use of the term as descriptive.
You seem to focus on who and when invented the term app in the field of mobile software. Actually, it doesn't matter.
Let's assume that "app" was invented by Apple at least in the mobile software market. Still now it's a generic term and as you wrote "people started to refer to computer/mobile software as "apps"", so not only Apple's software, but *any* computer/mobile software even if not from Apple is described as "app". This means the term has become generic, so it cannot be a trademark and it would lose trademark status even if previously granted.
Because "Applications" didn't fit on a key.
See, there are other abbreviated terms on this calculator like "NXT" instead of "Next", "HIST" instead of "History", or "SYMB" instead of "Symbols".
That doesn't mean that people will start referring to those functions as their abbreviated names. Most will see the abbreviated term but read the actual term, like you would say "Control" even if the key on your keyboard says "Ctrl".
Are you saying a company shouldn't be allowed to be called and trademark "NXT", "CTRL" or "SYMB" if it's not trademarked already, just because they are abbreviations written on keyboards?
The fact that it was abbreviated on tiny calculator keys doesn't mean it was abbreviated in common language and a generic term everybody used.
Good point... "Windows" wasn't used to describe and market a product that frames a pane of glass for your home.
It used was as a computer terminology that became popular. So why didn't MS lose the mark once it became common lingo??
I think it was mainly because they poured so much money into it that it was identified with an Microsoft product. If Apple, Xerox and IBM early on created Apple Windows, Xerox Windows and IBM Windows and advertised it like crazy to a point where it wasn't associated with MS, then there would be a strong case to challenge.