Amazon.com tries to toss Apple ‘app store’ trademark suit, cites Steve Jobs in its own defense

Amazon.com today responded in court to Apple’s lawsuit over the name of its Android Appstore — calling the iPhone maker’s claim to the “App Store” trademark baseless, and pointing to a statement from Apple CEO Steve Jobs as one piece of evidence in its favor.

“So there will be at least four app stores on Android, which customers must search among to find the app they want and developers will need to work with to distribute their apps and get paid. This is going to be a mess for both users and developers. Contrast this with Apple’s integrated App Store, which offers users the easiest-to-use largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone.”

Amazon’s argument is if App Store is specific to Apple, why did Steve Jobs generically refer to the Android Marketplace as an “app store?” The argument is that he voided his own definition of what he considers the App Store to really be. If you ask me, I’d say Apple probably won’t secure the App Store branding as it is too generic. You can get away with specifically calling it the iOS App Store, the Mac App Store, and the iTunes Store, but calling it the App Store as one inclusive generic entity is a stretch don’t you think? As with everything else, Apple may have been better off appending an “i” in front of the name and calling it day. Amazon’s Appstore stands a fair chance of keeping its name, no matter Apple’s requests to speed up the process.