Amazon can continue to use the phrase “App Store” to describe its mobile download storefront, despite Apple’s request that it be forced to remove the name while awaiting a trademark-infringement trial in October.
Apple filed a trademark lawsuit against Amazon in March, saying that calling its soon-to-be-launched Android apps market “App Store” would confuse customers. Amazon countersued in April, saying that “App Store” is generic.
In the meantime, Apple asked a federal judge in California for a preliminary injunction that would immediately stop Amazon from using the name.
In her opinion, Judge Phyllis Hamilton agreed that Apple had invested in advertisement for the name and that people recognize the term. “However, there is also evidence that the term ‘app store’ is used by other companies as a descriptive term for a place to obtain software applications for mobile devices,” she wrote in the opinion.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, iqonceptiqoncept
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