In January, Microsoft requested a summary judgment to block Apple’s application to trademark the phrase “App Store,” on the grounds it was a generic phrase.
Now Apple has fired back with a pointed reminder that Microsoft successfully trademarked an even more generic phrase: Windows.
Microsoft are quite clearly not too happy with this success, so much so, it’s taking this rather cynical legal action against Apple over the trademarking of the term 'App Store' - for Apple this is the name of their virtual application store - a place where millions of its customers buy apps. Apple announced yesterday that the App store had paid 2 billion in developer revenue since its inception.
There’s no doubt rest of the tech world are playing catchup - Android isn't too far behind - but Microsoft are still waiting for the starting gun.
For us they're clutching at straws, Microsoft think that Apple can't trademark such a generic term - like Word or Windows? Come on Microsoft - it's your fault you made a false start not Apple’s - come up with a better name and be done with it.
Apple, has accused Microsoft of stretching the truth with "confused and misleading" arguments, adding that the company that has traded on its "Windows" trademark for years was in no position to argue over "genericness".
"What it offers… are out-of-context and misleading snippets of material printed by its outside counsel from the internet and allegations regarding how the public allegedly interprets the constituent parts of the term ‘App Store’," Apple said in a submission to the patents office.
"Having itself faced a decades-long genericness challenge to its claimed Windows mark, Microsoft should be well aware that the focus in evaluating genericness is on the mark as a whole."
According to Apple, the fact that software vendors - Android with its Market, RIM with its App World and Microsoft with its Marketplace - are all able to offer stores selling apps without using the "App Store" term shows that there is no need to keep the term open for general use.
We’ll let you know who wins this virtual tug-of-war.