In some bad news for Apple, Australia’s Federal Court has rejected an appeal by the company to trademark the term “App Store.”
In a ruling made Wednesday, judge Justice Yates dismissed Apple’s case and ordered it to pay the court costs of Registrar of Trade Marks.
Apple has been locked in a long-standing tug of war with Oz’s Registrar of Trade Marks over whether it should have ownership over the term it popularized on Mac and iOS. The company first took the registrar to court in March 2013, after the “App Store” trademark was revoked following its initial accepted. Since then, Apple has lost a total of three appeals: firstly by the trademark examiner, then by the Australian Trade Marks Office, and now today’s ruling.
Apple counsel had argued that although the term “app” existed before Apple sought to trademark “App Store” in 2008, Apple changed the definition of the word through the release of the iPhone.
The judge, however, disagreed. “Apple has not established that, because of the extent to which it has used the [trade]mark before the filing date, it does distinguish the designated services as being Apple’s services,” Justice David Yates said.
Unsurprisingly, Microsoft has also stirred the pot by objecting to Apple owning the trademark.
Today’s ruling doesn’t stop Apple from continuing to use the App Store name in Australia, but it does mean that it can’t bar any competitors in the country from using the same term.
Weirdly, Apple does still own the trademark “Appstore” (with no spaces) in Australia, and can restrict others from using it.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Via: iMore
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
9 responses to “Apple didgeridon’t own the term ‘App Store’ in Australia”
What a painful article titile.
A idiotic title from and idiot, what else could one expect? How to insult others using juvenile, stereotypical crap. This is what you get when you let undergraduates write for you.
Childish name-calling? Apparently the author isn’t the only juvenile here (but he clearly knows who his audience is).
Excuse me for having an opinion. His audience is a fast shrinking group of Tweens who giggle at crap like that. Me, I’m a grown up and expect a little better than this. You obviously enjoy such mindless pap. Knock yourself out.
Any chance of getting anything that resembles something that even comes close to professional, adult writing here, at all?
“ordered it”, why use a pronoun, are you talking about Apple? “after the “App Store” trademark was revoked following its initial accepted”, this writing is a joke… let’s not forget that god awful title “didgeridon’t”….
Let’s all learn from this experience and not use titles such as this in future.
Can we please get a few judges like this in the US. It’s about damn time someone use common sense in a situation like this.
worst headline title ever, congrats