Weurgh. Kinda sour, those Apples.
Apple surrenders in 'app store' trademark suit against Amazon
After battling it out in the courts for more than two years, Apple has dropped its lawsuit against Amazon over the e-commerce giant's use of the term "app store", claiming legal measures are no longer necessary. "We no longer see a need to pursue our case," Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told Reuters on Tuesday. "With more …
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Tuesday 9th July 2013 23:08 GMT Blain Hamon
Re: It's amazing
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." --Upton Sinclair
Apple's Huguet is probably paid handsomely to have the reality filter publicly on, especially in the US legal system, where one should never admit defeat or being wrong. Given that context, I'd be more amazed if she had said something like, "Our bad. Totally should have dropped this ages ago."
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Wednesday 10th July 2013 03:01 GMT Arctic fox
@Blain Hamon. Indeed, astonishment would be a small word in the context..........
...........if she had something of the kind. However, I think we could agree that them protecting their precious corporate egos is a small price to pay for them dropping this nonsense. I look forward (although I am not holding my breath) to her announcing that they are dropping their farcical judicial carpet bombing of Samsung on the basis the the iPhone/iPad brands are too strong to be damaged by the possibility that some seriously brain-dead members of the public might be confused when comparing them with their rival's products.
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Tuesday 9th July 2013 22:18 GMT Daniel B.
No shit, Sherlock
Apple's Huguet said that Apple chose to drop the case now because its App Store brand had grown strong enough to not require additional legal protections.
Given that the App Store only sells either OSX or iOS apps, and that you can only buy iOS apps on the App Store, I'd guess it never even needed said legal protections. Amazon's (or any other's) Appstore doesn't compete with the App(le) Store.
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Wednesday 10th July 2013 14:23 GMT Tom 13
Re: Apple, knobs.
Generally concur, but having once been involved in a Trademark dispute and being aware of several others, I'll give them a pass on this one. The lawyers told them they had to, so they did. Few people in a board room have the gonads/are foolish enough (choose your preferred option) to challenge a lawyer on these pronouncements. Now the courts have rightly said, no.
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Wednesday 10th July 2013 07:39 GMT peter 45
Oh
"App Store brand had grown strong enough to not require additional legal protections"
You mean there wasn't a 'likelyhood of confusion' as Apple has been claiming all along? I assume that they were not using the lawsuit to try to intimidate competition, and it wasn't the Judges comment that made them realise they were not going to pull the wool over his eyes, so the sudden increase in 'strength of their brand' reason must be true
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Wednesday 10th July 2013 07:53 GMT Robert E A Harvey
Re: Oh
I would like to see a contempt-of-court type sanction where the judge can just fine one (or both) sides for being vexatious litigants and wasting everyone's time. Would have come in handy with SCO/IBM as well.
5 billion paid to the public defence system to help the impoverished get justice would go down rather nicely, I feel.
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Wednesday 10th July 2013 15:43 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: contempt-of-court type sanction where the judge can just fine @ Tom 13
"... the judges also make money when the litigants bring these cases."
No, they don't. Judges are salaried employees who would be paid regardless (it isn't as if there is competition for cases). There isn't any extra for hearing certain types of case.*
* As far as I know, but California is a funny place ...
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Wednesday 10th July 2013 09:33 GMT Cuddles
Competition?
"With more than 900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads, customers know where they can purchase their favorite apps."
Well yes. If they have an Apple phone, they can do so using Apple's app store. If they have an Android phone, they can't, but can use someone else's instead. Trademarks are only relevant when the things being sold are in direct competition with each other. Since no device (that I'm aware of at least) is capable of using both Apple's and Amazon's app store, there is no competition.
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Wednesday 10th July 2013 11:38 GMT sabroni
Not bad, but I can't imagine them getting compensated enough to dent Apple's ardour for frivolous court cases. You do have to wonder how much this BS has cost Amazon.
We need some way to restrict companies like Apple from throwing their legal weight around safe in the knowledge that they can just go "oh, actually, don't bother" once the other party has spent a small fortune on lawyers.....
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