Apple added Amazon.com to its crap list back on March 18 in an effort to prevent the e-tailer from using the term “App Store” for its Android Market wannabe. Amazon fired back by saying the term was “generic,” which Apple is now disputing as well.
Bloomberg Businessweek is reporting that Apple has flatly denied Amazon’s April 26 claim in a court filing that the term “App Store” is generic and simply short for “a store for application programs.” It’s taken almost three weeks, but Apple is firing back in an effort to protect the term exclusively for its iOS and Mac platforms.
“Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words ‘app store’ together denote a store for apps,” a federal court filing Thursday in Oakland, California reads. Apple claims that the term “isn’t commonly used by businesses to describe download services” -- although that’s quickly becoming not the case -- and that Amazon’s Appstore for Android shouldn’t be allowed to use it.
For their part, Amazon has requested that the court toss out the Apple lawsuit, as well as “provide an order allowing it to use the term to sell programs for Android devices.” Needless to say, Apple claims that the website isn’t entitled to such an order.
Amazon’s Appstore for Android opened its doors on March 22 as an alternative to Google’s own Android Marketplace -- no doubt raising the ire of not only Apple but Google as well, with Amazon offering a new premium paid app each day for free.
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