Apple was dealt a massive blow in its bid to have exclusive rights to the term "app store" after a California district judge denied Cupertino's request for an injunction against Amazon's AppStore.
Apple failed to establish that its "app store" mark is famous enough to be thought as a exclusive trademark and the judge felt that the term wasn’t prominent or renowned enough for the injunction to be granted.
Apple has spent a considerable amount of money and effort marketing its App Store over the last 3 years, but “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,” Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton wrote in her Wednesday decision.
In 2008, Apple filed the application with the US patent and trademark office to register the mark "app store". In January 2010 Microsoft objected to the trademark and kicked off the legal battle between the two. Then Amazon released its own App store and Apple filed a suit demanding that Amazon stop using the term.
Both Amazon and Microsoft argued that the term was a generic one and does not apply exclusively to Apple and would continue to use the term.
Apple obviously felt that app store is a well-known term associated with the Cupertino company and other companies using it would dilute Apple's brand. Judge Hamilton, however, found that “Apple has not established a likelihood of success on its dilution claim.”
Apple was obviously hoping and, probably, expecting to win this injunction but it would seem that the amount of marketing they have ploughed into the term hasn’t convince the judge. Whether or not the App Store is generic or distinctive, people are still downloading apps by the bucket-load.
Apple announced on Thursday that App Store downloads have now topped 15 billion. After three years, there are 425,000 apps available in the store, with 100,000 native iPad apps. The milestone comes about six months after the App Store hit 10 billion downloads.