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Comment by robterrell | Hacker News Reader

Contact Apple, but in a forceful way. Word it as a cease and desist, with a demand that the other app be removed or renamed, and send it to the App Store team, as well as Apple legal, and the developers themselves.

Apple passes this stuff on verbatim to the other developer. (I have been on the receiving end myself.) If it's a mealy-mouthed pretty-please, I'm sure they'll ignore it, if they're dickish enough to name-squat on your app.

It helps tremendously if you've got a trademark for the app name (even a pending trademark) you're golden. Or, if there's any other infringement (i.e. they stole your icon, which is copyright infringement) you're in good shape, too.

Edited to add: not a lawyer, my legal advice is worthless, etc.

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IANAL and this really only applies to US law anyways, but isn't it a registered trademark that he doesn't have? That is, I thought trademarks accrued naturally just like copyright, but that registering them made it much easier to enforce claims. In this case the violation is clear and egregious enough that I wouldn't presume he couldn't win a trademark infringement case.

That's true, as I understand it. But if he was claiming a trademark on the name he'd need to put the "TM" after the name. (Not the R-in-a-cirlce, that's only for trademarks that have been registered.) But this stuff has lots of corner cases and I don't pretend to understand it all. More info: http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp#_Toc275426672

IANAL either, but my understanding is that you have common-law trademark rights from the time you start using the name in interstate commerce, whether you add TM or not.

This is correct.

It's easier to enforce a registered trademark, but common law trademark rights are all based on likelihood of confusion, which is present here.

Since this is the app store, the only law that really counts is US law. All of this is going through Apple which does business in the US.

Actually I'm not sure that's true, since for instance Apple curate different stores for different regions, and my purchases appear on my credit card statement as:

06/11/2011 APPLE ITUNES STORE SYDNEY AUS $1.98

IANAL but you can probably go after these guys in any of the jurisdictions that the knockoff app is sold in.

This sounds like a very good idea. I'm going to see my lawyer tomorrow and I'll tell her about your suggestions (this one and sending the documents in Spanish). Thank you so much!

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