Amazon Uses Steve Jobs’ Own Words in Defense to Apple Lawsuit
When Amazon decided to call their foray into mobile content the Amazon Appstore for Android, Apple responded in typical fashion with a lawsuit. You see, Apple has trademarked the App Store name and currently uses it for their own iPhone content store. When the trademark was initially filed it met objection by Microsoft — MS claimed the term was too broad and described a very general concept. Amazon is sticking with that defense and questioning the legitimacy of the trademark that was only granted recently.
In their response filed with the courts, Amazon points to a specific quote from Steve Jobs made during a conference call with investors:
“So there will be at least four app stores on Android, which customers must search among to find the app they want and developers will need to work with to distribute their apps and get paid. This is going to be a mess for both users and developers. Contrast this with Apple’s integrated App Store, which offers users the easiest-to-use largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone.”
We aren’t sure of how good a defense that quote makes alone, but it helps to build a larger picture where even Apple’s top dog used the “app store” term in a generic way, acknowledging that phrase is more a industry standard than intellectual property. The legal wrangling is just getting started on this case, but if Apple has their way Amazon will be ordered to drop the “Appstore” name. On the other side of the coin, if a judge sides with Amazon, Apple could lose their trademark for the term.
[via PocketNow]