Apple’s not happy with Amazon for calling their new app store for Android… well… “Amazon Appstore for Android.” In fact, they’re suing over it, claiming ownership over the term Android.
Amazon’s trying to get the suit tossed out, of course. First witness for the defense? It’ll be Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself.
In Amazon’s motion to get the suit rejected, Amazon is quoting Steve Jobs, who has referred to the competition’s app marketplaces as “app stores” on multiple occasions in the past.
For example, this money quote:
“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.”
That’s a pretty powerful point. Amazon is saying that Apple itself recognizes that App Store is a generic term, and their argument is that if Apple didn’t feel “app store” to be generic, Steve Jobs wouldn’t be using the phrase as if it did.
It’s a convincing point. Read the above paragraph again, and mentally transpose “iTunes” for “App Store.” It would make for strange reading, because iTunes is so specific to Apple as a brand. Steve Jobs, though, finds “app store” so generic that it’s just rolling off his tongue when he speaks of the competition.
I think Amazon may well have just won their case, at least in the court of public opinion. What do you think?
