Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Judge Skeptical of Apple's 'Appstore' Trademark Claims

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

neiltc13 said:
winston1236 said:
i dont know, there was another company that managed to trademark "windows" and "office"
Click to expand...

And again, people just don't get it.

App Store sells apps. It is a store for applications, therefore it is a generic term. Just like hardware store couldn't be trademarked by a company that sold hardware.

If "Windows" was the name of a business selling windows (like you put into houses) then that too would be generic. There is (and was) nothing generic about calling a piece of computer software "Windows".

Likewise, Apple owns a trademark on the words "Mac" and "Macintosh" despite these being a common terms used for a raincoat. But because Apple isn't selling raincoats, the trademark is valid.

"Office" is a trademark owned by Microsoft which it applies to a suite of software. The software itself is not an office, therefore the trademark stands.
Click to expand...

Makes sense
 
syan48306 said:
While it is true "Appstore" is generic, but then again who's to blame apple for trying? Hell just look at what Microsoft was able to get away with.

"WINDOWS" lol.

As if that's not generic at all.
Click to expand...

Clearly, you didn't read the 1st page of comments. I don't think you understand that "windows" is not a generic term in naming Operating Systems.
 
Apple needs to concentrate on the case against those thieves over at Samsung instead of wasting time on this.
 
Kleenex is generic

I don't remember hearing anything called an App Store before Apple starting call theirs by that name. There could have been but I just don't remember it.

I guess if they lose then iOS App Store will have to do.
 
cdembek said:
Can someone me how "windows" was trademarked? If MS was able TM "Windows" than AppStore should be locked up by apple.
Click to expand...
It does not matter if the word is not original or very generic in some famliar context (e.g. I hope your house is full of windows), you have to consider the trademark in the context of what is actually trademarked.

"Windows" was granted as trademark for an operating system because in the Operating System's context it's distinctive of a particular Operating System.

The question is just "the term AppStore in the context of stores which sell software applications is distinctive enough? Would it cleary define Apple's software store and only that one?". Apple claims that the term clearly defines their "app store", others argue that it could be anyone's app store and it's not specific enough.

Note that it does not matter who used the terms AppStore or App first. If the term becomes too generic to clearly define Apple's applications or Apple's software store the trademark cannot be granted. Even if the terms were already trademarked if they become generic through usage the trademarks would be lost.
 
WestonHarvey1 said:
Microsoft has sued or threatened to sue several companies who used the word "Windows" in a product name.
Click to expand...

So has McDonald's
MacJoy
McCoffee
McChina Wok Away
McMunchies
McAllan (one man hotdog stand)

Everyone sues everyone who uses their name, its nothing special.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Reading this thread has been educational. Apple shouldn't be allowed to win this one.
 
Allow me to derail that train of thought ....

In your Microsoft Windows example, you neglect the fact that Microsoft wasn't ever really challenging the use of the term in other computer-related scenarios. (EG. Many operating systems claimed to have "Window Managers", but Microsoft wasn't foolish enough to lay claim to all use of the term "Windows" as it related to anyone using a rectangular or square shaped border to encapsulate a piece of software.)

In fact, the one case I'm aware of where Microsoft got upset about another OS using a similar name (Lindows), they wasted over 2 years litigating, only to wind up losing and having to spend $20 million to settle and buy the rights to the Lindows name, so they could get the original owners to call the product something else!

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._Lindows)

In Apple's case, they're trying to say nobody else has the right to call an online store that sells applications an "Appstore" (despite the fact that Amazon did NOT even put a space between the two words like Apple did with theirs). This really shouldn't fly with the courts, UNLESS Apple could actually show really compelling evidence that they're losing sales revenue to people who are mistakenly buying things on Amazon's site when they thought it was the "same thing" as Apple's App Store. (Not likely!)


aurichie said:
This is absolutely worth fighting for. App Store should rightly belong to Apple in the context they use it. It's as valuable to them as the generic term Windows is to Microsoft. So I'm outraged by this news.
Click to expand...
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I think the "i" would be even more redundant than the one in iWeb in that case. Plus, it would have two vowel sounds in a row which is uncomfortable to pronounce.
 
neiltc13 said:
And again, people just don't get it.

App Store sells apps. It is a store for applications, therefore it is a generic term. Just like hardware store couldn't be trademarked by a company that sold hardware.

If "Windows" was the name of a business selling windows (like you put into houses) then that too would be generic. There is (and was) nothing generic about calling a piece of computer software "Windows".

Likewise, Apple owns a trademark on the words "Mac" and "Macintosh" despite these being a common terms used for a raincoat. But because Apple isn't selling raincoats, the trademark is valid.

"Office" is a trademark owned by Microsoft which it applies to a suite of software. The software itself is not an office, therefore the trademark stands.
Click to expand...

neiltc13 said:
It doesn't have to have been used before. Both components of the trademark are generic terms, and together the term is generic. There were stores selling applications before Apple launched its "App Store" - heck, any retail store selling computer software could be described as an App Store.
Click to expand...

"Both components of the trademark are generic terms, and together the term is generic."
Really? I think it's you that don't get it.
A trademark can be a very generic term.
Is "Staples' a generic term?
Of course; it is in every English dictionary.
And, what does Staples sell?
According to your logic, everyone can open an office supply store and calls it "Staples".
The most important thing in trademark matter is not whether the words are generic. Instead, it's whether it creates confusion for customers.
If you have used the trademark for so long that people will think of your business when they hear it, then other people should not be allowed to use the same terms for the same products.
If you don't protect your trademark and allow it to become genericized, then you'll lose the right. But using a generic term in your mark doesn't automatically mean it's invalid.
 
Last edited:
Apple might have stood some type of chance if there own employees, Steve Jobs included, hadn't used the term "app store" to refer to other companies app stores.

This seems like a bit of a waste of funds at this point. Plus, there is not a single person who owns an iPod, iPhone or iPad that would confuse Apple's "AppStore" with Amazon's "AppStore".

Plus, if 50% or more of iPhones have never been synced to a PC, then what is Apple really afraid of? These folks are really only buying apps. through their phones anyway.
 
back in the day

10 yrs. ago I was a TA who helped answer people's questions in a computer lab with 60+ computers at a large university. The lab was mostly an Apple lab, though we had a dozen or so Windows machines. Funny thing is, when we would use the words, "app" or "application," people would give us blank stares. We had to refer to them as "programs," which is what Windows calls them.

Fast-forward 10 years and suddenly everyone is saying that "app" is a totally generic term? Funny that Apple has been using it forever, but that it hasn't really been that long since it's really been "generic."
 
unobtainium said:
Well, this is purely anecdotal but supports the judge's comments about consumers' attitudes toward the term:

If I were asking my friend with an Android phone if he had a certain "app" available in his "app store" it would feel perfectly natural. More natural than saying, "Hey, check out the Android Marketplace (TM) to see if they have this app!"

I (and he) would probably both just call it the app store -- so there ya go, generic term in everyday usage. If Apple wanted to really identify itself with the term and trademark it, they would've had to act sooner before it entered general parlance as a term for mobile app stores.
Click to expand...

I became common because of the millions of dollars Apple spent marketing the name of their store. Just like people tend to call mp3 players ipods another term that became common because Apple marketed the name to everyone and made it desirable.
 
azurehi said:
"I Want it All" was taken by Queen in 1988...too bad, Apple.
Click to expand...

Queen was targeting the uncompromising man who takes and proclaims it is their property and not yours mentality of the world. Either understand the context of music or do us all a favor and stop associating the artist with your interpretation.
 
Consider the salient point of where it is we're having this discussion; an Apple centric forum. If you ventured outside of the Apple mindset, I don't think Appstore has much weight other than it where you buy apps.
 
Not again :)

The use of "app" is not being contested by Apple. The use of "application" dates back to at least the early 1960s, and I guarantee you that someone back then abbreviated it to "app" while talking to fellow developers.

As for its use later on, mobile device articles were widely using it by 2000. See below.

So forget arguments about "app". Apple wants "App Store". Personally I think Apple had a chance until their own top brass publicly used it in a generic way by talking about competing "app stores".

mobile_apps.png

palm-apps.png
 
ten-oak-druid said:
Anyway Apple really brought the term App into the everyday lexicon. The term existed previously but only after Apple's iphone and app store did it become mainstream.
Click to expand...

Exactly, although Apple's example of windows is not a great one, it does apply! Before windows xp, everything looked like a window pane, gray boring nasty windows. Ms is selling virtual windows and because they coined the term they got it. It should apply exactly to apples case because as stated above no one but developers were using the term app before 2007.

Haters gonna hate. Which a lot of you seem to be doing. No one copied windows name because Apple was more creative than that and came up with their own Mac. The same should again apply. Let Amazon use Application store but the shortened version of app store is slang, there for not generic.

Apple never copies anyone, everyone copies Apple.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back