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Apple Defends Microsoft's 'App Store' Trademark Challenge
In 2008, Apple applied for the trademark “App Store” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). This application was recently challenged by Microsoft, on the grounds that “App Store” is too generic for “retail store services featuring apps” and as such is “unregistrable for ancillary services such as searching for and downloading apps from such stores.” To support its argument, Microsoft pointed out that the phrase “App Store” is so generic that even Apple CEO Steve Jobs has used the phrase in an interview to criticize the proliferation of similar efforts from competing companies.
Apple, however, in defending Microsoft’s challenge, countered that the term is no more generic than Microsoft’s trademark for “Windows”. In evaluating whether a trademark is too generic, the mark has to be evaluated “as a whole” and “requires fact-intensive assessment of the primary significance of the term to a substantial majority of the relevant public.” In furtherance of their arguments, Apple contends, that “Microsoft, missing the forest for the trees, does not base its motion on a comprehensive evaluation of how the relevant public understands the term App Store as a whole.”
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