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Apple Sues Amazon.com, Seeks Order to Stop Use of 'App Store'

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Re: Apple Sues Amazon.com, Seeks Order to Stop Use of 'App Store'

#53
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has successfully promoted the heck out of name "App Store" and spent a fortune doing so. If that's the criteria they have a solid case.

You are overlooking the second part of this: such that the public comes to identify the relevant term with one vendor and not as a primarily descriptive term, then that item is said to acquire "secondary meaning. It is not clear that the public identifies "app" as something from Apple only.

It's a biased selection but, Google's Page Rank certainly says that the public tends to "link" the term 'App Store' to 'Apple' in a pretty consistant manner

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#3...

Re: Apple Sues Amazon.com, Seeks Order to Stop Use of 'App Store'

#54
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has successfully promoted the heck out of name "App Store" and spent a fortune doing so. If that's the criteria they have a solid case.

You are overlooking the second part of this: such that the public comes to identify the relevant term with one vendor and not as a primarily descriptive term, then that item is said to acquire "secondary meaning. It is not clear that the public identifies "app" as something from Apple only.

I've definitely had a few encounters where it seems there's a good chance the average, non-technical user, considers 'app' to refer explicitly to iOS applications. I remember somebody wanting to work on a project asking if I had written any 'apps', I assumed he meant applications and I listed off some of the more interesting projects on various platforms. He seemed utterly confused that I was talking about things that were not running on an iphone.

Re: Apple Sues Amazon.com, Seeks Order to Stop Use of 'App Store'

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Windows" is a trademark ( http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualPrope... ), so how do you explain that? If windows is not a generic word, it must be because it's applied in a specific context (a window manager). So then, possibly an "app store" doesn't just mean a store on Main St, that happens to have applications on its shelves, but a novel concept worthy of a trademark?

You probably couldn't trademark the name of a company that made glass windows as "Windows". Nor could you name a product that was a glass window as "Windows". That's the difference.

I.e. I couldn't name my grocery store "Grocer Store" and then try to trademark the term...

Re: Apple Sues Amazon.com, Seeks Order to Stop Use of 'App Store'

#56
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has successfully promoted the heck out of name "App Store" and spent a fortune doing so. If that's the criteria they have a solid case.

Apple has been very inconsistent on their use of it though. Originally you just searched for apps in iTunes Store. Then I believe it changed to iTunes App Store. And now they have a Mac App Store. the other point is that apple refers to them as 'apps' in a generic sense and not something like 'App Store applications'

Was it not always called 'App Store' on the phone/ipod?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#2.x:_Second...

Re: Apple Sues Amazon.com, Seeks Order to Stop Use of 'App Store'

#57
post #4

AMZN: Buy

do you not fear P/E contraction?

AMZN's P/E of 65 is historically massive, especially when others like Apple are at 19. You flip 65 upside down to get .0154, or 1.54% if you want to compare it to a bond. Steep price to pay, market must expect them to quadruple or so profit in the near future.
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