Apple legal is going after Open Source startup with their App Store trademark | Hacker News Reader

Apple legal is going after Open Source startup with their App Store trademark

crunchgear.com

20 pointsgleb12 comments

I'm really confused as to what anyone is supposed to call the online store where one sells applications? It's as if someone trademarked "Department Store" and all of the sudden, Macy's, Sears, JC Penny, Dillards, etc couldn't use the term to refer to their stores any more. That's insane.

There were online stores that sold applications before Apple did so. What's wrong with calling them whatever we used to call them, before Apple started calling theirs "App Store"?

But "app" has been a genericized term since at the 1980s (See "Killer App"). And I'm not seeing how if "Foozit" is a generic term how you can copyright "Foozit Store" if the term is in fact describing a store which sells Foozits.

What did we used to call them?

App stores.

The company in the article is now calling it the "App Shop"

EDIT: See cpg's response, it's actually cycling.

Application Store?

If I were fabulously rich, I'd go with "Appl Store", just to kick the hornet's nest a bit more.

That's hilarious. Unfortunately trademarks are phonetic, so this can't fly.

The 'App Store' brand is so important to Apple now that they have no choice but to go hard to try and own it. It won't look good for Apple's claim if Amazon can stand in court and list off reams of other App Stores.

It would be great if the claim does not hold up, however, this may take a while.

In the mean time, to avoid a crushing blow, we have started complying, by cycling the name of the second tab with the top suggestions we are getting - over 830 so far ... http://www.amahi.org/name-the-store

We'll do search/replace of other strings in the site soon ...

Worst case is that Amazon and Apple settle out of court and screw everyone else.

I hope that Amazon and Microsoft can crush them in court and get all this squashed. I would say go for it Amahi and do not comply with them but I know that cant be done without the cash and lawyers. Lets just hope that the big guys can win it for everyone!!

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