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QOTD: Like "Office" and "Word" Aren't Generic…

March 1, 2011 at 11:06 am PT

“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. 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 defends its right to trademark “App Store”

Tagged with: App Store, Apple, digital, John Paczkowski, Microsoft, QOTD, quoted, shorty, trademark

comments so far. Add yours.

http://www.facebook.com/bobsentell Bob Sentell

Sounds like Apple is doing the “but you let them” argument. Good to see their lawyers made it to the third grade.

Honestly, I think this is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. Everyone calls their respective store an app store in the generic sense. But I never recall Apple or Red Hat referring to their OSs as a windows.
Anonymous

There is only one standard for trademarks. What works for Microsoft by definition has to work for everyone else.

The whole point with a trademark is you say it FIRST. Everybody calls music players “iPods” now, but they did not do so before Apple created a product called “iPod™”. Everybody calls their online system for buying applications “app stores” now, but they did not do so before Apple created “App Store™” in mid-2008 (you can verify this with Google.) Everybody calls the subdivisions of their computer screen “windows” and they were doing so for decades before Microsoft created “Windows™”. There were at least 2 years of commercial products from Apple with “windows” on their screens before Microsoft created “Windows™”.

That is why Microsoft is getting laughed at for saying they have a right to rename “Windows Marketplace for Mobile” to “Microsoft App Store.” Why didn’t they call it that BEFORE Apple App Store if the term is generic?

Microsoft also argues that “app” is generic. But for decades, Microsoft has called applications “programs” or “executables”, which is why they are installed into a folder called “Programs” and have the filename extension “.exe”. Apple has called applications “apps” for decades and every single Mac OS and iOS application in the universe has the filename extension “.app” on it (it is hidden from users but not developers).

So yes, Microsoft is being laughed at over this. Especially when their products names are the most generic in the world. Their office suite is called “Office”, their windowing system is called “Windows”, their word processor is called “Word”, their phone is called “Phone”, their personal computer is called “PC.”

C’mon.