Apple Slaps Microsoft Over App Store Trademark Suit: "Windows" Is Just As Generic

Apple has struck back at Microsoft's attempts to have the term "App Store" deemed generic, suggesting that its arch-rival's own battle to preserve the "Windows" trademark is the perfect example of why it should be allowed to retain the term. "Having itself faced a decades-long genericness challenge to its claimed WINDOWS mark," Apple said in a filing submitted earlier this week, "Microsoft should be well aware that the focus in evaluating genericness is on the mark as a whole and requires a fact-intensive assessment of the primary significance of the term to a substantial majority of the relevant public."

"Yet, Microsoft, missing the forest for the trees," Apple somewhat snarkily continues, "does not base its motion on a comprehensive evaluation of how the relevant public understands the term APP STORE as a whole." The testimony of a linguistics expert is then introduced, who insists that most use of "App Store" is as a proper noun in description of Apple's software store.

It's now up to the USPTO Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to make a decision, which could see the case going to trial. You can read the full 63-page Apple filing at TechFlash.