Judge Refuses To Grant Apple An Injunction Against Amazon’s Use Of “App Store”

A judge has just rejected Apple’s claim for a preliminary injunction to stop Amazon from using the term App Store

This comes out of the case where Apple suited Amazon for trademark infringement saying that Amazon improperly used Apple’s “App Store” name.

Amazon argued that the term is generic and therefore not protectable.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton did not agree that the term is purely generic, however ruled that Apple:

“Has not established “a likelihood of confusion” with Amazon’s services to get an injunction”

“The court assumes without deciding that the ‘App Store’ mark is protectable as a descriptive mark that has arguably acquired secondary meaning.”

“The court does not agree with Amazon that the mark is purely generic, for the reasons argued by Apple, but also does not find that Apple has shown that the mark is suggestive, as there appears to be no need for a leap of imagination to understand what the term means.”

The judge set a trial date for October 2012.