Microsoft challenges Apple’s exclusive right to use the term “App Store”

"Apple seeks to exclusively appropriate the phrase 'App Store' for use with its own store offering apps," says Microsoft's Opposition filing with the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

 

Microsoft is sure that the appropriation of the term is absurd. "The undisputed evidence shows that 'app store' is a generic name for a store offering apps," Redmond argues with tautological terseness.

 

Redmond notes that the US Patent and Trademark Office has ruled against other such word combinations in the past, such as when it denied trademark protection for "The Computer Store", "Log Cabin Homes", "Candy Bouquet", and others.

 

Interestingly in its Opposition filing Microsoft cites Apple’s own words who had said that “app store” is in common use meaning just an application store: "Indeed, in a recent interview, Apple CEO Steve Jobs criticized the proliferation of app stores for Google's competing Android platform as follows,":

 

 

Microsoft notes that they, like others, would like to use the term themselves, but "Apple asserts that such uses are infringements of its rights and it has sent demand letters to companies using 'App Store' in their names."

 

While such a resolute appropriation by Apple cause other companies to call their own application marketplaces something else still Microsoft points to the fact the media sources use the term “app store” to describe such kind of stores:

 

"Under established law," Microsoft concludes, "APP STORE is unregistrable for retail store services featuring apps and for ancillary and other services offered by Apple at its app store. Apple cannot leverage its early success to prevent competitors from using this generic term for their own app stores."