Microsoft Challenges Apple's Efforts To Trademark "App Store"
Apple sought to trademark “App Store” in a 2008 filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. That year Apple debuted the iPhone 3GS and launched its online App Store to provide a site for downloading applications for the smart phone.
Today the App Store offers more than 300,000 applications for the iPhone and Apple’s popular iPad device that debuted last year. Late last year Apple launched the Mac App Store for applications that work with the Mac OS that runs the company’s desktop and laptop computers.
Monday Microsoft filed a 23-page motion with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, within the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, seeking a summary judgment prohibiting Apple from gaining exclusive use of “App Store.”
“’App store’” is a generic name that Apple should not be permitted to usurp for its exclusive use,” argues Microsoft’s attorneys in the motion, according to a PDF of the document posted online by Techflashpodcast.com. “Competitors should be free to use ‘app store’ to identify their own stores and the services offered in connection with those stores. Microsoft’s motion for summary judgment should be granted and Apple’s application to register APP STORE refused.”
Microsoft argues that the combined words “app store” are commonly used in the IT industry, by the general press, by consumers, and by Apple’s competitors “as the generic name for online stores featuring apps.” The document even notes that Apple CEO Steve Jobs used the term generically in a recent interview to refer to online application marketplaces from Amazon, Verizon and Vodaphone.
Microsoft’s legal challenge to Apple comes as the company is trying to catch up to Apple, Google and other competitors in the market for mobile devices and the software that powers them. In October Microsoft debuted its Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating system and launched its own online app store offering applications that run with that OS. As of late December the Windows Phone marketplace had 5,000 applications.
Just before Christmas Microsoft disclosed that 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 smartphones were sold in the first six weeks of the software’s availability.