Amazon continue to fight Apple over rights to ‘App Store’ name

As KitGuru reported a while ago, Apple issued a trademark lawsuit against Amazon over the use of the words ‘App Store', saying that the term is generic and that Apple should have no legal claim to it.

Amazon are no pushover, they are the world's largest online retailer and they said they weren't required to obtain a license or authorisation to use ‘App Store' because the term is ‘unprotectable' and it won't be confused with Apple's App Store service. This is according to a filing yesterday in federal court in Oakland, California. Amazon offer an App Store with downloads of software for Android devices, which was opened on March 22nd this year.

Amazon said in the filing “Based on their common meaning, the words ‘app store’ together denote a store for apps, such as the app stores operated by Amazon and Apple”. Amazon also said that the Apple lawsuit, filed on March 18th should be dismissed and then a court order issued confirming Amazon's right to use the words.

Apple have said that they have applied to register the ‘App Store' wording as a trademark in the U.S. and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have approved the application. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but it seems rather heavy handed to us on the part of Apple. Amazon could easily have relented to Apple's demands and renamed their store, but clearly they want to prove a point.

KitGuru says: App Store or no App Store, Amazon are waiting to find out.

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