Of course they are. Who do you think pays for a company's frivolous lawsuits?
The next product you buy will have to reflect the operating costs of the company that makes it, including the lawyers' bills.
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Apple Sues Amazon Over 'App Store' Trademark
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Of course they are. Who do you think pays for a company's frivolous lawsuits?
The next product you buy will have to reflect the operating costs of the company that makes it, including the lawyers' bills.
Did any of you follow the Wikipedia links provided in the article? It sounds like there is some onus on the corporation interested in trademarking a term to promote a generic alternative. See the examples of Xeroxing versus photocopying and kleenex versus tissue below. If I am not mistaken Apple has done nothing to promote a generic term for app store. It sounds to me like they are skating on some thin ice.
Avoiding genericide Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry
"Trademark owners will naturally seek to maximize the popularity of their marks. However, generic use of a trademark presents an inherent risk to the effective enforcement of trademark rights and may ultimately lead to genericide.
Trademark owners may take various steps to reduce the risk of genericide, including educating businesses and consumers on appropriate trademark use, avoiding use of their marks in a generic manner, and systematically and effectively enforcing their trademark rights. If a trademark is associated with a new invention, the trademark owner may also consider developing a generic term for the product to be used in descriptive contexts, to avoid inappropriate use of the "house" mark. Such a term is called a generic descriptor, and is frequently used immediately after the trademark to provide a description of the product or service. For example, "Kleenex tissues" ("facial tissues" being the generic descriptor) or "Velcro Brand fasteners" for Velcro brand name hook-and-loop fasteners.
Another common practice amongst trademark owners is to follow their trademark with the word brand to help define the word as a trademark. Johnson & Johnson changed the lyrics of their Band-Aid television commercial jingle from, "I am stuck on Band-Aids, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me" to "I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me." Google has gone to lengths to prevent this process, discouraging publications from using the term 'googling' in reference to web-searches. In 2006, both the Oxford English Dictionary[7] and the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary[11] struck a balance between acknowledging widespread use of the verb coinage and preserving the particular search engine's association with the coinage, defining google (all lower case, with -le ending) as a verb meaning "use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet".
Where a trademark is used generically, a trademark owner may need to take special proactive measures to retain exclusive rights to the trademark. Xerox corporation was able to generally prevent the genericide of its core trademark[12] through an extensive public relations campaign advising consumers to "photocopy" instead of "xerox" documents.
One example of an active effort to prevent the genericization of a trademark was that of the LEGO Company, which printed in manuals in the 1970s and 1980s a request to customers that they call the company's interlocking plastic building blocks "'LEGO blocks' or 'toys' and not 'LEGOs'." While this went largely unheeded, and many children and adults in the U.S. referred to the pieces as "LEGOs", use of the deprecated term remained largely confined to the LEGO Company's own products – and not, for example, to Tyco's competing and interchangeable product – so genericization of the LEGO trademark did not occur."
Avoiding genericide Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry
"Trademark owners will naturally seek to maximize the popularity of their marks. However, generic use of a trademark presents an inherent risk to the effective enforcement of trademark rights and may ultimately lead to genericide.
Trademark owners may take various steps to reduce the risk of genericide, including educating businesses and consumers on appropriate trademark use, avoiding use of their marks in a generic manner, and systematically and effectively enforcing their trademark rights. If a trademark is associated with a new invention, the trademark owner may also consider developing a generic term for the product to be used in descriptive contexts, to avoid inappropriate use of the "house" mark. Such a term is called a generic descriptor, and is frequently used immediately after the trademark to provide a description of the product or service. For example, "Kleenex tissues" ("facial tissues" being the generic descriptor) or "Velcro Brand fasteners" for Velcro brand name hook-and-loop fasteners.
Another common practice amongst trademark owners is to follow their trademark with the word brand to help define the word as a trademark. Johnson & Johnson changed the lyrics of their Band-Aid television commercial jingle from, "I am stuck on Band-Aids, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me" to "I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me." Google has gone to lengths to prevent this process, discouraging publications from using the term 'googling' in reference to web-searches. In 2006, both the Oxford English Dictionary[7] and the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary[11] struck a balance between acknowledging widespread use of the verb coinage and preserving the particular search engine's association with the coinage, defining google (all lower case, with -le ending) as a verb meaning "use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet".
Where a trademark is used generically, a trademark owner may need to take special proactive measures to retain exclusive rights to the trademark. Xerox corporation was able to generally prevent the genericide of its core trademark[12] through an extensive public relations campaign advising consumers to "photocopy" instead of "xerox" documents.
One example of an active effort to prevent the genericization of a trademark was that of the LEGO Company, which printed in manuals in the 1970s and 1980s a request to customers that they call the company's interlocking plastic building blocks "'LEGO blocks' or 'toys' and not 'LEGOs'." While this went largely unheeded, and many children and adults in the U.S. referred to the pieces as "LEGOs", use of the deprecated term remained largely confined to the LEGO Company's own products – and not, for example, to Tyco's competing and interchangeable product – so genericization of the LEGO trademark did not occur."
Exactly it would be like someone trying to make a gaming console and calling it a play station to compete with the playstation, you cannot just add or delete a space and think you are going to get away with it.
Even call it the mobileapp store.
but you have to make sure it does not become generic. If the term becomes generic you loose you trademark as well.
If you take noticed of Q Tip and Kleenex they took great strides to make sure that there names did not become generic. QTips brand name calls themselve QTip COTTON SWABS notices the bold part there. They keep the generic part as a huge piece of it. Off brands call them selves COTTON SWABS
There are way to avoid this happening and that is make sure you do what you can to prevent it form in the media from being genericly used and you SURE as hell better not use the term genericly. Apple acts that way so as such helps prove App Store is generic and therefor can not be trademark at all. Apple calls is APP STORE an APP STORE. Than is an issue. Apple uses the term genericelly only helping prove the term is generic.
This is a good example. Sony was succesful in trademarking playstation since the generic term is gaming console and if no such term existed, the onus would have been on Sony to promote an alternate generic name to protect their trademark. What generic term has Apple actively promoted as an alternative to app store?
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AmazonApps : Short for the "Amazon, ****** You Apple, AppStore", I like it, nice, short and to the point. You're a genius.
It comes down to this. No one had the guts to call Apple on its generic name.
The others took most of the other ones but if you notices none of them can put App store as their description for fear of Apple. Microsoft wants to do it wiht Marketplace put App store for the mobile Apps. They use Marketplace to cover more than just their app store.
Amazon clearly feels that App Store is generic. It seems Apple is not going to win its Trade mark which is years off. If they do win the they then have to fight Amazon on saying the term is not generic at that point in time which again gives years of farther down the road of it happening.
Amazon will also show time and time again Apple has failed to push any other type of generic term and calls other things like App World, Android Market ect APP STORES showing that even apple uses the term App store generically and therefor can not be a valid trademark any longer.