A court revealed on Monday that Apple had sued Amazon for allegedly infringing on a trademark with the Amazon Appstore. Apple claimed that the start of developer support for the Android shop was a misuse of the App Store name. Apple said it had asked Amazon three times to stop using the name without a “substantive response” before turning to the lawsuit.
“We’ve asked Amazon not to copy the App Store name because it will confuse and mislead customers,” spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, was made public just a day before Amazon’s store was to go live and came even as the trademark was under dispute. Although approved by the USPTO, the “App Store” trademark has been challenged by Microsoft for being too generic as a reference to any application shop. Apple has countered that the concept of an app store has become synonymous with the company and that the name was even meant to recall Apple’s name.
