GetJar responds to Apple's cease and desist over App Store term

It's come out this week that Apple sent a letter last month to mobile application database GetJar asking them to cease and desist using the term "App Store" to describe their mobile app offerings. Apple's been trying to keep the term "App Store" for itself, with varying degrees of success, and this is another push by the Cupertino company to keep other mobile app platforms from confusing the iOS app delivery service with anything else.

But GetJar's not budging -- a post on the service's developer blog says Apple can stuff it, more or less. To be fair, the company says it's not really competing with Apple, instead both directing customers to the iOS store, and serving lots of users from other systems and devices. But GetJar also says it's been running since 2005, before the iPhone's release, and it's been using the term "App Store" since 2009, even though Apple has issued the C&D only now. Apple's been unsuccessful in securing a trademark on the "App Store" term, it's lost injunctions against Amazon and Microsoft in the past regarding the term, and GetJar basically says that it won't kowtow to what it calls "bullying" by Apple.

GetJar has also started a Facebook group called "The Open and Free App Movement," to better organize developers and application vendors who are "fed up with this crap." Interesting. We'll have to see what response Apple has to all of this. This might not be the fight it wanted to pick.

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Source: http://blog.getjar.com/developer/getjar-vs-apple/

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It's come out this week that Apple sent a letter last month to mobile application database GetJar asking them to cease and desist...

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Adam Plante

Good for them. App Store is such a generic term it should not be trademarkable. That would be like trade marking the term grocery store or convenience store.

July 12 2011 at 1:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Maccles

A whole load of bravado from GetJar's Mad Mork. Let's see if he's still beating his chest silverback-style when Apple's lawyers move in for the kill?

Some of his claims are laughable. "We were here long before Steve & Co." Would that be the same Steve & Co. that was founded in 1976?

Or does he mean GitJar started using the term "App Store" before Apple did - uh oh - no - that isn't true either!

July 11 2011 at 7:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Maccles's comment

dewfm11

really all it is saying is that they were around (05) before the iphone was- meaning, that before the iphone came out, apple had no app store, and that they were operating before there was an app store. either way this is an invalid argument, simply because as you pointed out, they were not using the term app store before apple. which honestly wouldnt matter either, since they didnt patent the term. but thats getjar's argument as well- apple didnt patent the term. i think apple will have a hard time getting rights to that term simply because there isnt anything inventive or creative there to patent. it is simply shorthand for application store. a location in which to obtain applications. lots of companies have them and alot of companies even have their own internal app stores. its like walmart trying to patent the term grocery store.

July 12 2011 at 12:50 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

DEEmery

As I understand the law (And IANAL), to keep a trademark you must aggressively defend it. So the question here is strictly one of use of the potentially trademarked term "App Store", and any assertion about "free beer" and underlying freedoms is not particularly relevant. And if Apple were to be selective in its enforcement of the -trademark-, that would substantially undermine the legality of the trademark itself. I.e. If you don't defend it everywhere, you end up losing it.

July 11 2011 at 6:15 PM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down Reply