Apple: an 'App Store' Is Not a Store For Apps

recoiledsnake writes "What would be your first guess about what an app store sells? Don't be fooled, Apple warns, the phrase 'app store' is not generic and can only be used to describe Cupertino's... um, app store? 'Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words "app store" together denote a store for apps,' Apple said in a Thursday filing with a California district court. All this notwithstanding that Jobs himself used the phrase generically while referring to Android app stores. We've previously discussed this ongoing legal battle."

Apple == EVIL

[bleble]

It's nothing new from Apple. Remember that Apple always ignores everyones patents when it doesn't feel like paying for them (all the Nokia thing), but if someone else uses their patents Apple sues them. Same thing here. Apple and Steve Jobs are just being retards and think they can do whatever they want. And still MS gets blamed for being evil and Apple with its fully closed garden is some kind of white knight...

So they maintain that App is short for "Apple"?

[elrous0]

If the "App" is short for "Apple" (as they're presumably arguing), then that means that they're calling their online applications store the "Apple Store," which seems to conflict with their physical hardware-oriented stores of the same name. Methinks that would indicated that "Apple" was not what they meant there.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to listen to the Beatles on the Apple record label. Of course, in that case [wikipedia.org], Apple argued that "Apple" was a generic term. I guess things have changed.

Re:Apple == EVIL

[PopeRatzo]

It's nothing new from Apple.

And no matter how you spin it, turn it upside down and examine it, try to put the most positive face on it, it is also hostile toward consumers.

Re:Apple == EVIL

[geekoid]

Apple tries to control what you can do with the device you bought, insist on getting money every time you want to do something with that device. The abuse the legal system, and twist contracts even if they have to 'shop for judges'

So, yeah, evil.

Could the be more evil? sure.

" activist judges"
I see the republican meme has gotten fully into your brain.

Re:Apple == EVIL

[goombah99]

Hmmm.

Xerox can copyright a shortening of the term Xerography ("dry printing").

Apple has been using the term and suffix .app since it bought NeXT.

Microsoft copyrighted a network centric API called .Net and uses that suffix.

Microsoft copyright a window manager called Windows. (recall that the original Windows was not really an OS but just a GUI window manager for DOS.)

It seems to me that apple winds on many grounds.

the term application has many meanings so it's use in the narrow term for an application on a computer is similar to the narrow usage of the generic words Apple or Amazon as company names in their fields not as fruit or rivers. Apple would probably get in trouble if they opened a store in the amazon basin and called it the Apple Amazon store.

So if Windows can bar Lindows and Amazon could bar apple from calling one of it's regional stores Amazon since they are in the same field why can't Apple bar amazon from re-using it's coined app term.

Likewise apple wins because App is a word invented like Xerox.

Just because someone used a slang term "killer app" does not mean the slang can't be copyrighted.

Go ask Yahoo if Yahoo is copyrighted.

Re:Old news...?

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Mod parent -1 on the rag. No, seriously, on a planet w/ real violence against actual non violent protests, getting all kinds of worked up about a turn of phrase that means mocking the unworkable solutions of a bunch of utopians is at best clutching your pearls(Oh the horror inflicted upon those poor clams!). Please take your self righteous anger and go volunteer at a soup kitchen or a free clinic and do some real good rather than playing arbiter of language and its use on Slashdot.

Re:Old news...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Racism implies that a person is being prejudged by an inherent physical trait which they have no control over. Being a drugged out loser is a completely rational decision that each hippie makes, and it is perfectly fair to judge them for it.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Insanely Obvious

[LBArrettAnderson]

Whether or not "app store" was widely used is irrelevant. The fact is that "app" was widely used years and years before this to refer to programs/software/applications. Where does one sell "apps?" An app store. If that isn't obvious, I don't know what is.