Amazon responded to Apple's "app store" lawsuit this week with a countersuit that asks the court to throw out the case and rule that Amazon has the right to use the name Amazon Appstore.
"Amazon has not received a license or authorization from Apple to use the term 'app store,' and contends that no such license or authorization is required because 'app store' is a generic term, and Amazon's use of the term causes no likelihood of confusion, dilution, or unfair competition," Amazon said in its suit, which was filed in California district court.
Last month, Apple sued Amazon over its Amazon Appstore, arguing that Apple has the exclusive rights to the phrase because of its iTunes App Store. Apple has targeted Microsoft on similar grounds.
On March 14, Apple demanded that Amazon not use the term "app store," according to the filing. Amazon refused and launched the Amazon Appstore on March 22; it then told Apple on March 25 that it would continue to use the phrase despite Apple's objections.
In the countersuit, Amazon cited the American Dialect Society, which recently voted "app" as the Word of the Year for 2010, "noting that although the word 'has been around for ages,' it 'really exploded in the last 12 months,' with the arrival of 'app stores' for a wide spectrum of operating systems for phones and computers.' Indeed the words 'app store' are commonly used among many businesses in the app store market," Amazon argued.
The company also pointed to an October 2010 statement from Apple chief Steve Jobs, in which he said that Apple's App Store is "the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, pre-loaded on every iPhone."
Microsoft has made a similar argument in its legal wranglings with Cupertino. In Microsoft's original motion, it cited cases in the press where "app store" was used to refer to a generic storefront for mobile apps. Microsoft also referred to the October 2010 Jobs quote.
In a 25-page brief (PDF) filed last month with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Apple hit back. "Having itself faced a decades-long genericness challenge to its claimed WINDOWS mark, Microsoft should be well aware that the focus in evaluating genericness is on the mark as a whole and requires a fact-intensive assessment of the primary significance of the term to a substantial majority of the relevant public," Apple argued.
"Yet, Microsoft, missing the forest for the trees, does not base its motion on a comprehensive evaluation of how the relevant public understands the term APP STORE as a whole," Apple said.
Amazon, meanwhile, wants the court to allow it and other companies to use the term "app store," as well as award attorneys fees and costs.