Am I missing something? (too lazy to read 17 pages of comments), but didn't the original post actually indicate that Apple applied in 2008 and received approval in 2010? Do they or don't they have the TM?
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Apple Sues Amazon Over 'App Store' Trademark
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Am I missing something? (too lazy to read 17 pages of comments), but didn't the original post actually indicate that Apple applied in 2008 and received approval in 2010? Do they or don't they have the TM?
Good!
Amazon needs to stop pilfering other companies. While their at it, hire a designer to fix that horrifically cluttered train wreck of a website.
Amazon needs to stop pilfering other companies. While their at it, hire a designer to fix that horrifically cluttered train wreck of a website.
Maybe the same designer could work on the iTunes store's interface that is built into iTunes.
They would only be confusing to an idiot. It says more about the recent increase in Apples fan base and Apple than anything else.
It's just like the word ipod, now everyone's got an ipod like device or an ipad style tablet. Apple used those words to describe what they invented first. I would have never used the term app. store unless I heard it from apple. So with that said while everyone is fighting for the word app. they could be finding the next big term to use before someone else genius does. 
No, they have not been awarded anything yet.
The opposition phase is the final phase BEFORE a TM is granted.
I would fundamentally disagree with you on their being no competition and it is a major flaw with your argument. If that was so, why did Amazon not use "Amazon's Marketplace for Android"? One reason is "Marketplace" has picked up a very denotative quality for poor software and male-ware in the world of mobile applications. It is non-curated. "App Store" is just the opposite. Argue all you want on the "evils" of being curated but the fact remains, the "App Store" has a much higher connotative value than the "Android Marketplace".
By calling it Amazon's Appstore, Amazon is trying to associate the Android eco-system with the eco-system Apple has built. Instead of building their own name awareness, they are trying to coat-tail Apple's hard word. Likewise, if Amazon does a bad job handeling their Appstore, Apple poses to be recipients to any generated bad press (something Apple does well enough on its own).
So again. Show me where the Android Market Place is referred to as the App Store. Show me where Nokias Ovi Store is referred to as the App Store. Show me where RIM's App World is referred to as the App Store.
Try http://www.AppStore.com
Google "App Store"
Google "AppStore"
Now Google:
Hardware
Grocery (this defuses entirely your weak "hardware store" argument.
PetsMart. (Try and open a pet store and call it Pet Smart)
The term "App" was not even common for defining applications outside the NeXT and Apple programming world until 2008. There is a reason that almost all top hits relate to Apple. Heck, even Wikipedia did not start including "App" as a subtype of "Application_Software" until October 2009.
So I see "App Store" as a very defendable trademark and see it as having much value for Apple.
Seriously...
I'm calling BS on your BS. I was writing classic asp / vbscript web apps (and calling them web apps) well before Apple launched the ipod in 2001. Anyone who's done any type of programming at any point in their lives has referred to an "application" as an app. All apple has done is popularized a term that has been around in the tech industry for years.
And "application" and "program" have existed since the days of mainframes, which was well before both Apple and Microsoft.
I'm calling BS on your BS. I was writing classic asp / vbscript web apps (and calling them web apps) well before Apple launched the ipod in 2001. Anyone who's done any type of programming at any point in their lives has referred to an "application" as an app. All apple has done is popularized a term that has been around in the tech industry for years.
And "application" and "program" have existed since the days of mainframes, which was well before both Apple and Microsoft.
Amazon is going down. Whether you agree with the ruling or not, everyone is getting their clock cleaned in the mobile application marketplace with the exception of Apple. Amazon's nomenclature is a clear attempt to lure unwitting consumers into their marketplace via confusion. We may not see this as computer savvy users, but the average tard who doesn't know the first thing about this could easily be confused into buying a device under the impression that he'd have access the Apple's App Store when he actually wouldn't.
Good point, Amazon licensed this term to Apple as they own the patent to it, which IMHO is an absurd trademark/patent to be granted (although supposedly not granted in europe).
As for whether Apple have the right to trademark the term app store, that's for the courts to decide, but they have every right to sue Amazon, just like Amazon feels obliged to sue over their 1-click patent.
But for what it's worth, the term itself has only become ubiquitous since Apple started using it.
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It's amazing how people will argue until they are blue in the face when they have no idea what they are talking about.
It doesn't matter if Apple trademarked it if the term has become genericized, and that needs to be examined on a case by case basis. Just because it's descriptive doesn't necessarily mean it's generic, and just because it's trademarked doesn't exempt it from becoming generic. It is incumbent upon the owner of the trademark to protect it from becoming generic. Has Apple done that here? More importantly, could they possibly do that here? The tech space is a notoriously difficult arena to keep a descriptive, generic trademark in because of how information is shared and transmitted. App is short for application, and if you start calling your applications "Apps" you run the risk of people using the term "App" for all of their applications; it doesn't really matter what the file extension is.
It doesn't matter if Apple trademarked it if the term has become genericized, and that needs to be examined on a case by case basis. Just because it's descriptive doesn't necessarily mean it's generic, and just because it's trademarked doesn't exempt it from becoming generic. It is incumbent upon the owner of the trademark to protect it from becoming generic. Has Apple done that here? More importantly, could they possibly do that here? The tech space is a notoriously difficult arena to keep a descriptive, generic trademark in because of how information is shared and transmitted. App is short for application, and if you start calling your applications "Apps" you run the risk of people using the term "App" for all of their applications; it doesn't really matter what the file extension is.
Are you people going to continue to recycle the same response that has been addressed over and over and over and over again!
Windows is Not trademarked.
Microsoft Windows is.
Apple App Store
Amazon AppStore
Done problem solved.
Again, as some have mentioned earlier in this thread, go ahead and publish an OS and call it Windows or a package of productivity apps and call it Office and see how long it takes for your phone to ring with Microsoft's legal department on the other end.
"Windows" and "Office" are very much protected brands of Microsoft.
Like I am sure others have said, Kleenex and Q Tip are both "generic" terms but are names of products. Go look at the generic brand names of these products, they cannot use the name Kleenex or Q Tip because they are traded marked, its the same thing with the app store. And no you cannot just delete the space, that would be like saying since Q-Tip is TMd you could just use Q TIP or QTIP, it does not work like that.
They need to call it the applicatation store or make up another word.
They need to call it the applicatation store or make up another word.
but those brands both made an attempt to educated the public about the difference between their brand name and what they are.
Kleenex for example calls them Kleenex BRAND facial tissues. Qtip calls them selves cotton swabs.
Apple on the other hand failed big time in that department and even used the term App store generically in MULTIPLE press events. You have keynots speaches were Steve Jobs called the other Application stores APP STORES. Apple used the term App Store generically and that is a huge reason to loose you trademark to being generic. Apple used it generically and failed to even attempt to educated the public about it.
If Apple wins its case against MS on the term App Store for its trademark it would still have to fight Amazon on it in a different court under different rules and again risk loosing it to being generic.
Apple using it as a generic term is a huge reason to prove it has gone generic.
Perhaps Amazon needs to consult one of the many thesauruses they sell. There are plenty of other words they can use. Shop. Market. Marketplace. Outlet. Boutique. Superstore. Whatever. Why not just AmazonApps? Short. To the point. Conveys the Amazon brand. Done.
Amazon's choice of AppStore (no space) to compete with Apple's App Store (space) was absurd and simply begging for trouble. Which they got.
Note RIM (App World), Palm (App Catalog), Google (Android Market) and Microsoft (Marketplace) managed to come up with their own ideas. Amazon seems to be making a deliberate attempt at sticking their thumb in Apple's eye.
Uh ? Which "ideas" ? Apple has stolen nothing from BSD or Linux. Everything they have used from the open source community they have done according to the licensing terms.
See http://opensource.apple.com
There's no legal requirement to go out of your way to express to the general public that your trademark is exactly yours. There is a legal requirement to protect your trademark by filing lawsuits, if necessary, against any company who decides to infringe upon it. Apple is of course using the term "generically", just like everyone else uses the term iPod "generically". They want everyone to think of them the same way everyone thinks of Kleenex or Q Tip, to use the examples from the post you're responding to. That doesn't negate their trademark.
jW