Thing I don't get is who cares - nobody calls the apple "app store" the app store - everyone calls it itunes except maybe apple and its lawyers. So it's moot.
Just more money to lawyers and the court system.
A US judge has ruled in Amazon's favor in a case in which Apple accused the online retail giant of false advertising in its use of the term "app store" in its Amazon Appstore for Android. "The court finds no support for the proposition that Amazon has expressly or impliedly communicated that its Appstore for Android possesses …
I'll bet it really hurts Apple to see all of their high tech inventions being copied by other. Other manufacturers need to realize that it takes about 100 PH.D's in engineering to invent the expression 'app store', rectangles with rounded corners and the general shape of an apple leaf. People need to start respecting other people's property and companies patients.
Why would you call it iTunes? I've got an ipad but I've never used iTunes. I've downloaded lots of apps through the handy app on there called, erm, "App Store". Yes I know that I could use connect my iPad to a computer and use iTunes on there to download apps, but that just seems perverse.
Not that I agree that Apple should be able to trademark the term App Store. The should have called it iStore or something if they wanted a unique, trademarkable name.
This post has been deleted by its author
I totally agree.
Its a bit like claiming rights to "petrol station". BP have every right to get narked if I call my petrol station a "BP Petrol Station" but if its an "ESSO Petrol Station" or just a plain vanilla "Petrol Station" then so what. We both sell petrol, but I can't sell BP petrol. i.e. BP is the brand. It's that simple.
But, but - Apps didn't exist until Apple invented them!
(Seriously - I have seen people, including media journalists, who really seem to think "apps" are some new kind of thing, and don't realise it's short for application, as has been used as shorthand for years before the media picked it. Now with Windows 8 adopting the term, I've even seen people saying things like "Now Windows does apps too". Ironically this may come back to bite Apple, if people start thinking that Windows does apps, but Macs don't...)
Gah, this is so dull.
How is "Application Store" any different to the Canonical "Software Store". Slightly different words for the same thing. "Applications" and "Apps" is the same god damn meaning. It's starting to seem to me however that there is in fact a big difference: "Applications" are used by proper professional people (to create and develop shit), and "Apps" are used by people to pass the time during travel, or avoid speaking to their family/loved ones.
For goodness sake. This one comes up every single time!
Microsoft have not got a trademark affecting anyone involved with the manufacturing, selling, purchasing, fitting or maintenance of panes of glass. They have a copyright on the term Windows in the context of computer software. It's specific.
Point well made, but I'm sure that Xerox (Star), MIT (X Windows), Sun (SunTools), Digital Research (GEM) and even Apple (Lisa) were using the term "Window" and it's plural form in relation to computer systems a long time before MS Windows version 1 went to market.
Oh FFS.......
People REALLY don't get it....despite it being incredibly easy to grasp.
I could launch a car brand called "Wheels". Just because every fucking car in the world has wheels, in no way does it stop me having a BRAND called "Wheels". If I tried to to stop people putting wheels on their car, or said they now had to be referred to as round floor contact devices, then I would deserve to be shot down in a ball of flames, but otherwise my brand is valid.
Any good tech sites where the IQ in forums is above 3?
Blimey, calm down. Not sure why you are shouting at me or calling me a moron. Nowhere did I say you could not have a brand that is a distinct representation of a word or having a trademark prevents others using the word in general context. That was precisely my point.
"I could launch a car brand called "Wheels". Just because every fucking car in the world has wheels, in no way does it stop me having a BRAND called "Wheels"."
Firstly, you can only have a trademark within a set of categories and sub classes. You could not simply trademark the word "Wheels" in general and start going after people who use it anywhere. As I say, that was the entire point of my post.
Secondly, you can only gain a trademark if your trademark was distinctive for the goods and services you provide. In other words they can be recognised as signs that differentiates your goods or service as different from someone else's within the categories and sub classes you have been granted the trademark.
So in your example, the "Wheels" would have to be formed of some distinct design unique to the automotive categories and classes you were trying to register it.
See, I do get it. Now go take a nice long cold shower.
Indeed, and there's also the point that two wrongs don't make a right anyway.
Interestingly, it's not really clear they would win a case on "Windows", even in the context of computing - the problem is that "window" is a generic term even within computing (e.g., X Windows). When they tried to sue Lindows, they lost the original case, and settled out of court. The last thing they wanted was to risk losing the trademark on their flagship product.
It'll be interesting to see how this goes, since Apple seem determined to go through the courts - if they lose, it'll be fair game for anyone to use "app store", without any fear of action!
(Also, copyrights are a different thing altogether, the issue is trademarks.)
The case of (W|w)indows is indeed interesting. One could argue that Microsoft Windows is so widespread that they have no real need to trademark the name. Far from deceiving people, any other software whose name refers to windows probably has to explain that it isn't Microsoft.
MS taking a trademark on the name Windows is no different then Apple having one on Apple, Itunes or Snow Leopard. Its the product name, its original, its non-descriptive and hence trademarkable.
What your looking for is a comparion between Operating System and App Store, which is descriptive and generic, and hence should not be trademarkable.
Try and use some common sense from time to time...
You can't trademark a straightforward description -- otherwise, you would be locking everyone else out of the market by the back door; which would be anti-competitive behaviour. It's a store, it sells apps. "App store" is about as descriptive as you can get for a store that sells apps. Not trademarkable. Ting! Next, please.
Our Baguette-munching continental cousins prefer their abbreviated forms to end on a vowel sound. For instance, "an amplifier" un amplificateur is abbreviated not as un amp, but as un ampli. By analogie, une application deviendrait une appli. And the app store is certainly more like une boutique than un magasin. So "app store" probably would become la boutique d'applis.