It may have been answered already but Apple uses the suffix .ipa for iphone/pod touch apps whereas "Programs" to me is nowhere near ".exe" for which I thought stood for "executable." You know, I'm just sayin.
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Microsoft Hires Linguist to Oppose Apple's 'App Store' Trademark
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It may have been answered already but Apple uses the suffix .ipa for iphone/pod touch apps whereas "Programs" to me is nowhere near ".exe" for which I thought stood for "executable." You know, I'm just sayin.
But that is not what we are discussing. This isn't about App and Store as seperate words, but App Store being descriptive. You're out in left field with your theory.
App Store is not like Touch Pad. A Touch Pad is a tablet computer that runs a limited mobile operating system, permitting Internet connectivity and the running of Applications. It's not a "Pad" you "touch".
Again : This would be like Grand Union changing their store names to Grocery Store, trademarking Grocery Store (not THE Grocery Store tyvm) and going after every competitor who uses "Grocery Store" in their advertising.
I should sue The Body Shop for using a generic noun everyone has and the generic term 'shop'. How dare they trademark this generic term screwing over humans with bodies and shops everywhere...
will make it rain ipod shuffles before they give up their hard earned trademark 'App Store'.
will make it rain ipod shuffles before they give up their hard earned trademark 'App Store'.
But nobody ever attempted to trademark 'Grocery Store'. There would have to have been somebody who attempted to do so in the 1800's for this analogy to be relevant.
Anyway, I don't know if it has escaped people's attention, but the following generic terms are registered Adobe trademarks:
PHOTOSHOP
LIGHTROOM
CREATIVE SUITE
ILLUSTRATOR
ACROBAT
There's also PAGES, NUMBERS etc. but that's not the case. You should compare APP STORE to some generic terms like SPREADSHEET, WORD PROCESSOR, GRAPHICS EDITOR etc.
I should sue The Body Shop for using a generic noun everyone has and the generic term 'shop'. How dare they trademark this generic term screwing over humans with bodies and shops everywhere...
in my opinion 'The Body Shop' is not a generic term, because they don't sell bodies. 'The Cosmetics Shop' is a generic term.
Consider a shop called 'Photoshop' that sells photography equipment, as well as graphic software.
I couldn't call my shop that.
Apple could just as easily switch to Apple Store, or iApps, but that would be seen as weakness, and apple would Never do that. I do understand they have to protect their brands, however, the motives always seem a bit more ego / pride driven than they do legal (IMHO).
Amazon and the likes, could also quite easily make something completely new, make it their own, and even more catchy. But, they won't do that, because it too would be seen as backing down.
I understand the principle behind patent, trademark, and such, but I have a very hard time seeing the logic in some of these lawsuits, outside of simple human ego.
Amazon and the likes, could also quite easily make something completely new, make it their own, and even more catchy. But, they won't do that, because it too would be seen as backing down.
I understand the principle behind patent, trademark, and such, but I have a very hard time seeing the logic in some of these lawsuits, outside of simple human ego.
To me this seems that Microsoft are simply trying to cash in on the enormous popularity and awareness of the App Store.
I've been working in the IT industry since the earlier 80's and the first time I ever saw the the app term used to define an application program was on the NeXT computer in 1988. in fact all the binaries or bundles in NeXTstep, other than unix binaries, used a .app file extention.
In the DOS world we always used to use the terms program or exe.
Edit : Apple was calling them Applications in my 1984 Macintosh users manual.
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Not the same. People have always used the term "grocery store" in everyday language. Nobody ever used the term "app store" before Apple did.
There are two possibilities: It may be that Microsoft does this to help the world that is oppressed by the fact that evil Apple trademarked "App Store", which is what everybody always used to call any shop that would sell software, and now all these shops selling software have to take their "App Store" signs down because of evil Apple. Can you see that as the reason why Microsoft would do anything?
The other possibility: Apple has created the term "App Store", made it famous and recognised for a place where you can easily buy high quality software, and Microsoft wants to ride on Apple's coattails and use the same name that Apple made famous, benefitting from the work that Apple put in to make "App Store" mean what it means today. Which would make sense from a business point of view, but which would be exactly the thing that trademark law is supposed to prevent.
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Next the farmers will complain that they can't have an apple store
App is short for apple
Next the farmers will complain that they can't have an apple store
App is short for apple
Thinking out loud
-- App as an abbreviation
Many people have heard the related term "killer app", for instance, which dates back to the early 1980s. Heck, search Amazon.com for "killer app" and you can see how many books comes up.
-- Silly phrase banning
Microsoft wouldn't be able to say their "Marketplace is a fine app store". Apple couldn't say their "App Store is the largest app marketplace".
Instead we'd be treated to Apple ads saying, "our App Store is the largest app store". Hmm. Perhaps that's why Apple is doing those "If you don't own an iPhone, you don't own an iPhone" ads. They're getting us ready for even more horribly redundant phrases
-- Speaking of old terminology
Who's been using "tablet" and "slate" for the past decade? Right, Microsoft. Should they have gotten a trademark on "touch tablet" and stop Apple from describing their iPad that way? No, that would be as silly as getting one on an "app store".
-- App as an abbreviation
Many people have heard the related term "killer app", for instance, which dates back to the early 1980s. Heck, search Amazon.com for "killer app" and you can see how many books comes up.
-- Silly phrase banning
Microsoft wouldn't be able to say their "Marketplace is a fine app store". Apple couldn't say their "App Store is the largest app marketplace".
Instead we'd be treated to Apple ads saying, "our App Store is the largest app store". Hmm. Perhaps that's why Apple is doing those "If you don't own an iPhone, you don't own an iPhone" ads. They're getting us ready for even more horribly redundant phrases
-- Speaking of old terminology
Who's been using "tablet" and "slate" for the past decade? Right, Microsoft. Should they have gotten a trademark on "touch tablet" and stop Apple from describing their iPad that way? No, that would be as silly as getting one on an "app store".
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To Microsoft's credit, they don't stop anybody from using the term Office for similar products. I use WordPerfect Office X4 and OpenOffice on my Windows box. Microsoft has not given any grief over it. They DID, however, go after Lindows in a ridiculous way, suing the company in every court in the developed world until they found a friendly venue in the Netherlands.
Far more generic than "Office," in my opinion, is the "Word" as in Microsoft Word. Now THAT is generic.
Apple is just doing what EVERY company does to protect its products from becoming the next kleenex or xerox. Do you really think that Microsoft is innocent in all of this? If you look at the their list of trademarks, "Device Stage" is definitely a generic term.
Microsoft is just pissed that they didn't think to trademark App Store first. If they could have they would have.
Microsoft is just pissed that they didn't think to trademark App Store first. If they could have they would have.
Since the trademark in dispute is "App Store" I don't think you can throw out the word store just because it's descriptive. Sure nobody is claiming "store" but either party could easily use the word "Market" with the word "App" instead of "store" and any subsequent case would probably be thrown out.
"App Store" is the trademark contention in it's entirety - even if focusing on "App" is the current bone picked by both parties. Nobody in their right mind would sue over "store" and that's why it's easy to neglect. I think
's team is pursuing the matter all wrong.Microsoft thought "App Store" had a nice ring to it, even though they've sold software and licenses online for quite some time longer than Apple has had their store in operation yet it never occurred to them first. So the courts must now decide if Microsoft are wagon jumpers or simple users of English; and thus determining the USPTO is comprised of negligent dimwits - I personally believe it is.
Illustrator is not generic for a program that is used to make illustrations?
<removed because it was already mentioned>
Ever hear of "ThePhoneStore," "Rent Store," "QuickStore," or "DanceStore? Me neither, but they're live trademarks. I dare you to use them.
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apple uses App Store not AppStore correct? i would think the spaces (and the use of The) make a huge difference as it would be gramatically incorrect to use dancestore in a description. also what is a Rent Store? what are you renting? that's the closest example to App Store, but i can clearly see that App Store is a store for apps, but what is a rent store for? and it doesn't seem to work in a descriptive sentence. now if it was Rental Store, blockbuster or whatever couldn't say go to your nearest video rental store in their advertising.
True, for their UI, similar to Samsung's TouchWiz name. For that matter, HTC was able to get just "Touch" for one of their phones.
A difference, I think, is that Apple does not (and probably cannot) go after anyone who simply says their device has multi-touch (lowercase), and HTC cannot go after anyone who says they make a touch phone.
Wouldn't App Store fall into the same usage? So people could still say they had an "app store", just not the "App Store"?? If so, then I would lean a bit more toward's Apple's side.
I'm not sure I follow exactly. It doesn't have to be only "vaguely descriptive" or grammatically incorrect to qualify as a TM. You bring up a good point though, I've seen spaces matter before (RadioShack vs Radio Shack) but that was in Canada. Then again they also have "The Beer Store" which is a trademark and there has never been any dispute. Not sure how much deviance there is between US and Canadian trademark. I would suspect not much, but I could be wrong. I don't think spaces should matter at all, but I'm not the law
Rent Store: "Providing a website where owners can post items and services available for rent by others."
Go on USPTO and search for the mark "store" with default options. You'll find plenty of marks with the word "store" in it. Even more that quite don't. The examples I gave were just on the first page. There are likely far better ones to support either view if you want to dig.
Before Apple, did anyone refer to their store that sold applications as an app store? Did they do so in public (Print or the internet)?
I'm not sure I follow exactly. It doesn't have to be only "vaguely descriptive" or grammatically incorrect to qualify as a TM. You bring up a good point though, I've seen spaces matter before (RadioShack vs Radio Shack) but that was in Canada. Then again they also have "The Beer Store" which is a trademark and there has never been any dispute. Not sure how much deviance there is between US and Canadian trademark. I would suspect not much, but I could be wrong. I don't think spaces should matter at all, but I'm not the law
Rent Store: "Providing a website where owners can post items and services available for rent by others."
Go on USPTO and search for the mark "store" with default options. You'll find plenty of marks with the word "store" in it. Even more that quite don't. The examples I gave were just on the first page. There are likely far better ones to support either view if you want to dig.
yeah I don't really know the law, but was just giving my opinion (which really doesn't matter
). I guess I just haven't seen anyone give an example that would be as likely to be used generically in a description as app store could be. Thats where I was going with my point about the spacing or "The" making a difference. If Apple trademarked The App Store or AppStore, Microsoft could still describe its Marketplace as an app store. Again I don't know the law, and i'm not arguing the law, just merely what seems ridiculous in my eyes. which again i realize doesn't matter in the end.On another note, it makes me laugh when people compare it to branding like kleenex, hoover, and xerox. Yeah those terms caught on, more so like iPod has caught on. what did those words mean before they were "invented"? ok hoover might bring up some ideas but surely not vacuum cleaner. but to compare that to "App Store" baffles me.
Again, those are different situations. Apple is very close to branding "app store" with popular usage. M$ never had any such word choice popularity for those two terms, not like they have with Windows. "Windows" is so well-known that most office workers can't distinguish between Office and Windows when discussing them. As in, "My spreadsheet is Windows 2007 format." That is branding that you would wish to have trademarked. And why Apple has a chance to win this.