Apple sues Amazon over 'App Store' name

Quick, trademark this...

what about iAppStore since Apple seem to consider anything starting "i" is theirs

It may be generic NOW but it wasn't then

"IT magazine information age uses the term app store generically in the feb issue - perhaps they should be sued too.."

The industry moves so quickly that it's very easy to forget what things were like just a few years ago. Sure, people sometimes used 'app' short for application, but nothing like as universally as they do now, and certainly not when applied to mobile devices. Applet or mobile application maybe, but certainly not mobile app. And sure, there were lots of online stores that sold software, but usually each software vendor had their own store and you got a boxed CD in the post, and the only stuff you could buy for mobile devices was games and ring tones.

Seriously, who else had anything remotely resembling the Apple App Store, or referred to anything as an "app store", before Apple introduced theirs?

Just for interest, I did a search through 10 years of email archive, including various industry newsletters and forum digests I subscribe to. Apart from a number of spurious "the app stores its preferences here" type references, the first occurrence was in March 2008 when Apple first announced their app store, then about a thousand occurrences after.

Why Apple want that name

If you discuss "Windows" in an I.T. context people generally know you're reffering to Microsoft Windows, which is something Microsoft have an interest in. If someone says "you need to get Windows if you want to run that" then people generally know what product they need. Apple want "App Store" to work the same way, in that if people say "you can download this from the App Store" then people head straight over to Apple. If there are 10 different companies with "app stores" and people aren't sure which one someone's reffering to it could result in lost revenue for Apple. As a redeeming comment I think all of this is ridiculous and a big money making exercise for lawyers, but I can see why Apple are trying to persue it, no matter how stupid it may look to other people here.

App. Store (with a dot)

"App. store" with a dot to indicate an abbreviation is a completely generic term, should removing the dot make it a trademark?

Perhaps they will have better luck with this than they did with "Windows" but I hope not.

An yet scant mention...

Of Amazon pulling the API plug on the sites that has started lending services for Kindles such as www.lendle.com because it does not, to quote Amazon, “...serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site.” Yawn, Cade...

"mobile software developer program"

I love how Apple manage to avoid saying "Amazon's app store" - so I guess Apple think the generic term should be "mobile software developer program", despite the fact that no one in their right mind would use such a term? It doesn't even make sense - I'm not buying from a program, and "developer" implies it's only for developers, not customers.

I also note how the media have happily been referring to the store as an "app store" (e.g., http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12119509 ), because that's what it is.

"Unlike Google's marketplace, which lets developers list any application after paying a fee"

Really? Nokia's app store is only 1 euro - how much do Google charge?

Lewis Mettier, the Fake: "Apple simply got there first, just as they created the smartphone market"

Er, no they didn't.

"Was the smartphone market anywhere near what it became after the iPhone?"

I'm not sure what you mean. The phone market has been growing continuously, so obviously it is larger now than it was years ago, but that is no more down to the original Iphone, than any other phone. A simple glance at market figures shows that other companies (e.g., Nokia) have consistently outselled Apple, even in the ill-defined "smartphone" category, so the increase in market _can't_ be primarily due to Apple, because other companies have been selling even more.

"The Apple Lisa was first commercially sold personal computer to have a GUI."

Even if that was true (it isn't), the Iphone wasn't anywhere near the first commercially sold smartphone. If you're trying to claim that it should be labelled "first" because of some unknown quality, I might as well say AmigaOS was "first" with a GUI, because the Amiga was much more affordable than anything from Apple.

It's the Apple definition of "first" - "first", if we ignore all that came before. Next you'll be telling me they had the first computer without floppy drive, or first 64 bit personal computer.

"Like in the recent announcement of 8000% growth in data traffic at AT&T since the launch of the iPhone"

So Iphone users sit on Facebook all day, and the Iphone apps guzzle data in the background. I'm not sure why that's a good thing. My Nokia is more intelligent with its network usage - e.g., allowing maps to be downloaded and stored on the phone.

"1-Click or Windows are also a common English terms."

I don't think Windows should be trademarked either - and they lost the initial case against Lindows. If someone took them to court, they might well lose.

Sean Baggaley 1: "If you file a patent or a trademark, the onus is on YOU to police it."

The point is that they shouldn't be trying to trademark it at all.

"So why not "Amazon App Market"?"

Why not "Apple App Store"? People aren't copying Apple - they're using the generic term for the thing being described. If that's not "app store", then come on, tell me what the correct term is?

Apple customers confused

So is it the owners of iPads who will be confused whilst trying to download Android onto iOS or Android users being a bunch of wannabees, "It's like an iPad but not an IPad" as the advert goes..

Dear Steve et al,, Either grow up or just patent\trademark the whole damn dictionary and be done with it..

Ancient GUIs

Anybody rememer DR GEM on Amstrads.. OH I forgot Apple sued them as well.

Prior GUI

Not only was VisiCalc, as I say, the apparent origin of "killer app", and Lotus 1-2-3 the second of them, Wikipedia declares that "VisiOn" was the first GUI for PC, probably easier to look up as project name "Quasar". A hyperlinked PDF business school document about What Went Wrong states that VisiOn was released in December 1983, late, by which time you could buy an Apple Lisa or let Microsoft tell you about Windows 1.0, which seems to be credited with inspired the term "vaporware" (I'm not sure about that) because it didn't arrive till over a year later. VisiOn also seems to have beaten GEM to your PC screen by around six months(?), and probably mainly or exclusively ran VisiCorp programs - but I'm sure they'd have opened an app store if things were different.

Hands up who wasn't born yet then. I was, I'm in my forties. I even used some of this stuff, but not VisiCorp products. Amstrad PCs, or some of them, came with GEM.

RLM Appreciation Society

Thinking of starting one - anyone care to join?