Microsoft opposes a filing by Apple that seeks to trademark the phrase App Store. In its evidence to back up its assertion, it can call on none other than ... Steve Jobs
The Mac App Store. Photo by jediduke on Flickr. Some rights reserved
Microsoft has raised objections to Apple's attempt to trademark the phrase App Store. In the (PDF) complaint to the US patent office ? filed by the people who brought you Windows™ ? it says that "Microsoft opposes Apple's Application Serial No. 77/525433 for APP STORE on the grounds that 'app store' is generic for retail store services featuring apps and unregistrable for ancillary services such as searching for and downloading apps from such stores".
The reasons are straightforward: trademarks shouldn't be given on phrases or words that are "generic" in that sector. (Otherwise we'd long since have been getting into similar arguments about the whole Apple™ business.)
As Microsoft points out in its filing:
? "'App' is a common generic name for the goods offered at Apple's store, as shown in dictionary definitions and by widespread use by Apple and others."
? "'Store' is generic for the 'retail store services' for which Apple seeks registration, and indeed, Apple refers to its 'App Store' as a store."
So, it concludes: "These facts alone establish genericness as a matter of law under the cases holding that a generic product name followed by 'store' is generic for retail store services featuring the product."
It is somewhat tortuous, as legal letters disputing stuff tends to be. But they've found a noted technology chief executive bandying the phrase around. Here's what he said: "In addition to Google's own app marketplace, Amazon, Verizon and Vodafone have all announced that they are creating their own app stores for Android. There will be at least four app stores on Android which customers must search through to find the app they want and developers will need to work to distribute their apps and get paid."
Who said that? Er, Steve Jobs, in Apple's fourth-quarter earnings call.
It's all to be decided by the USPTO. While we can't say it's the most exciting thing to cross our radar all day; only the most amusing, given that Windows™ stuff. Why does it matter? what Apple is looking for is the ability to call it the App Store™. Android's is called the Marketplace. Nokia's is the Ovi Store. RIM's (for BlackBerry) is called App World, the "official store for BlackBerry Apps". The one on Windows Phone 7 is called ... ah, it doesn't have a name.
Possibly that's the hassle: Microsoft wants to be able to call its, er, app store the Windows Phone 7 App Store, but, of course, if Apple were to win the trademark, then it could shoo people (such as Microsoft) away from using the term. None of which would prevent Steve Jobs using it about others' ones generically, unless he wanted to sue himself, which would be interesting to watch.
Another point: trademarks aren't like patents. You don't have to prove that you're the first to be using the phrase or word (else Windows wouldn't have that ™). Read up on the differences here, and note that the main point of a trademark is that it is:
a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms "trademark" and "mark" are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks.
Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office.
Bonus link: Groucho Marx's response to Warner Brothers over its legal threats about the Marx Brothers' plans to make a film called "A Night In Casablanca", five years after Warner Bros had released the film Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Sample content: "I just don't understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don't know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try."
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