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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'

#71

Post by [deleted] »

atlbeer wrote: post #53
brown9-2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

[deleted]

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

#72

Post by JoeCortopassi »

gs8 wrote: post #23

Today's News Summary: Apple = Trademark Troll Microsoft = Patent Troll AT&T = Monopoly If Amazon fights this they could win and it could be good news for everyone, except Apple. p.s. Yes I know Amazon is a patent troll as well.

How the heck is AT&T a monopoly?

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

#73

Post by aphexairlines »

JoeCortopassi wrote: post #72
gs8 wrote: post #23

Today's News Summary: Apple = Trademark Troll Microsoft = Patent Troll AT&T = Monopoly If Amazon fights this they could win and it could be good news for everyone, except Apple. p.s. Yes I know Amazon is a patent troll as well.

How the heck is AT&T a monopoly?

The only GSM carrier left in the US?

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

#74

Post by jcl »

atlbeer wrote: post #53
brown9-2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

On the other hand, half of the "related searches" on that page are "nokia app store", "android app store", "samsung app store", etc., which are not the official names of any of those brands. Its possible that the public uses more formal names when linking but less formal names when searching.

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

#75

Post by nooneelse »

Yaggo wrote: post #64

Common words or not, nobody was using the term 'App Store' before Apple made it popular (after popularizing smartphone apps). Suddenly everyone wants to have their own App Stores (after making their own iPhone clones). Please, let Apple have its App Store and come up with something original. Cannot be so hard.

But plenty of people were talking about "web apps" before the iPhone. Which shows that "app" is not distinctive or unique. Nor is "store" distinctive.

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

#76

Post by nika »

SriniK wrote: post #14

Wonder what were apple thinking when they used iphone which clearly belonged to Cisco. http://gizmodo.com/#!227504/cisco-is-expecting-signed-agreem... These names are so common and apple fighting over is lame.

Maybe they were thinking they could buy the name from cisco, which is what happened pretty soon after. Have you considered the possibility that Apple had talked to cisco quite a bit prior to announcing the iPhone, and knew they were going to be able to acquire the name, and the subsequent "noise" cisco made about suing apple was a negotiating tactic?

Their agreement was pretty mild-- cisco wanted apple to support its VPN technology on the iPhones which they did.

Apple generally, if it finds someone else owns a name it wants that doesn't already infringe on one of Apple's names, buys the name from them.

It doesn't just copy the name and wait to be sued, as Amazon did here.

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

#78

Post by ajtaylor »

grellas wrote: post #8

Apple is here making an ultra-aggressive attempt at a land grab in the world of application software. The mark granted to it is for "App Store". Under relevant trademark law, a mark cannot be registered if it consists solely of a generic or purely descriptive term. "Store" is generic. So too is the word "application" - which is commonly thought of as being what the word "app" refers to. Therefore, no trademark could…

Grellas, I want to thank you for yet another insightful post. I always look forward to your posts because they explain legal terms in language a non-lawyer can understand. Please keep up the great work.
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