Steve Jobs and the legal team at Apple want the words “apps store” to be converted for their private use to “Apps Store®,” but Steve Jobs’ own words may hinder that goal.
Apple recently sued Amazon for opening the Amazon Appstore for Android, a term Amazon has called generic considering there were various “App stores” in existence well before Apple trademarked/stole the term.
Amazon lawyer’s wrote:
“In press releases, Apple has claimed that its app store is ‘the largest application store in the world.’ In October 2010, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs called Apple’s app store ‘the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone.’”
Very smart Amazon lawyers, very smart!
As part of any Trademark a company must guard all uses of their term, typically through lawsuits, however when a word is deemed “generic” that trademark can quickly lose it’s trademark designation.
