Microsoft challenges Apple's App Store trademark | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft challenges Apple's App Store trademark

electronista.com

31 pointstaylorbuley18 comments

This is one instance where I legitimately think Apple's trademark on the term "App Store" is wholly ok.

I did two searches on the term "App Store" using Google Trends and Google Ngram Viewer.

Trends: http://www.google.com/trends?q=App+Store&ctab=0&geo=...

Ngram: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=app+store&yea...

Trends shows data starting from 2004. Regardless of capitalization, i.e. "app store" or "App Store", it wasn't until 2008 when the term "App Store" started entering common parlance. This coincides with Apple's introduction of its "App Store".

Ngram data shows no usage of "App Store" or "app store" from the time of 1800 to 2008. I was suspicious of this, but using the terms "app,store" separately produced lots of data points. My tentative hypothesis is that Ngram is using data that existed before the App Store went public and thus will not show up in Ngram.

These are only two sets of data, but at least initially it seems that Apple has a legitimate claim to a trademark on App Store.

Fun facts:

At the time of the AppStore announcement by Steve Jobs, the word trademark APPSTORE and the domain APPSTORE.COM belonged to Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com dropped their APPSTORE trademark in 2008, just about the time Apple applied for APP STORE trademark. The domain APPSTORE.COM now leads to an error page within apple.com domain.

I guess we can safely assume Apple got the trademark green light and the domain from Salesforce.com, especially after—if my memory serves—Salesforce.com app was featured in one of the Steve Jobs stage announcements.

I concur with you.

What was the public's understand of the word App Store prior to Apple's entrance?

I do wonder though, is App Store a short for Apple Store or Application Store or both?

This is especially delicious, coming from a company whose trademarks include "Word", "Office", "Access", "Publisher", and "Outlook".

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualPrope...

That's just the Office suite, see also:

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualPrope...

The problem is the genericity of the term. For example, would you say, "Apple's Word product" Or "Google's Outlook client"? No, unless you were actually referring specifically to the MS branded versions of the product. This is actually why enforcing your trademarks is important.

Everyone uses the term "app store" to refer to "app stores". As the complaint notes, even Steve Jobs referred to "Android App Stores".

If you asked someone if Chrome had "Word" people wouldn't say, "Yeah it does." Thinking you meant a word processor in general. But if you asked if Android had an "app store" people would say yes. They wouldn't say, "No. Apple hasn't ported the App Store to Android, and likely won't".

The most egregious of Microsoft's trademarks is "windows". At one point, Microsoft sued Lindows for trademark infringement. During the trial, it became apparent that Microsoft might not just lose the case, but might end up having their "windows" trademark declared generic. So they quickly settled out of court, with Microsoft paying several 10's of millions to purchase the Lindows mark.

"Windows" was only deemed too generic because Microsoft had been using it for 3 years to demonstrate GUI's to the public.

To be clear, it's not because the name "Windows" is inherently bad and generic.

So, Apple AND Microsoft are both wrong.

Trademarking a name like "Food Store" for a grocery store would be ridiculous. Just as "App Store" is equally ridiculous.

Um, I don't find "Food Store" to be a ridiculous trademark at all.

Have you heard of The Container Store? They'd definitely argue that their trademark isn't ridiculous. And in my city, there's a burger restaurant called Burger and a drinking establishment known as Bar.

You can call your food store "Food Store", your bar "Bar" and your burger restaurant "Burger", but you can't claim exclusivity.

You'll be able to dig up thousands of ridiculous name-claims, I never really doubted that.

  They'd definitely argue that their trademark isn't ridiculous.

Yes, so would Apple and Microsoft. The same logic/idea apply here as well.

In Ontario, there is "The Beer Store", so I wouldn't say it's that ridiculous.

It's less ridiculous since, in Ontario, the government runs the only beer store in the province. Additionally, the franchise is not found outside of Ontario.

On another note, you didn't mention whether "The Beer Store" was a trademark, just that it existed.

Word, Office, and Publisher I'll give you - but Outlook and Access?

A Trademark isn't intended to be a made up word - it can be a common word as well (see Apple). A trademark isn't supposed to be descriptive, it's just supposed to be unique.

In Access and Outlook's case - imagine they didn't exist - I'd be hard-pressed to to think of how they could conceivably relate to databases and email.

If you view their trademark list (http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualPrope...), they haven't listed Word, Publisher or Office. The page you linked likely refers to the use of "Microsoft Word", "Microsoft Publisher" and "Microsoft Office", which are fairly uncontroversial.

Access and Outlook don't seem particularly egregious.

My parent comment was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but as others, such as kenjackson and unexpected, have pointed out, the issue is in fact more complex than my comment implied.

I think this is a good thing. "App Store" is too generic a term to trademark IMHO.

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