Apple ‘Appstore’ early injunction against Amazon fails

Apple bigwigs won't be too happy, after the latest news that a federal judge has denied their request to stop Amazon from using the term ‘AppStore'.

Judge Phylis Hamilton filed an 18 page opinion with the U.S. District Court for Northern California and denied Apple a request for a preliminary injunction. This would have stopped Amazon from using the word ‘AppStore'. Apple are claiming the rights for the term under trademark.

The judge has said that Apple have not proved that the term will cause confusion for customers of the companies, but she did add that she didn't agree with Amazon's views that the word is ‘purely generic'.

A section of her filing read “The court finds that Apple has not established a likelihood of success on its dilution claim. First, Apple has not established that its “App Store” mark is famous, in the sense of being “prominent” and “renowned.” The evidence does show that Apple has spent a great deal of money on advertising and publicity, and has sold/provided/furnished a large number of apps from its AppStore, and the evidence also reflects actual recognition of the “App Store” mark. However, there is also evidence that the term “app store” is used by other companies as a descriptive term for a place to obtain software applications for mobile devices.”

This battle has been going on for some time now, when Apple filed against Amazon in March for using the term ‘AppStore'. Amazon took a non passive stance, countersuing the following month claiming that the term is generic and that Apple had no exclusive rights in using the word.

You can read more about this over here.

Kitguru says: A good first sign for Amazon, but it isn't over yet.

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