Apple took it from many before with the App Store and now companies are trying to invalidate the AppStore and App Store trademarks registered to the Apple company. Nokia, Microsoft, HTC and several other companies have submitted complaints to the patent and trademark agency of the European Union requesting the invalidation of the above-mentioned trademarks. Companies can't use these names for their own app stores and that bothers them a bit because a few years ago they weren't able to think of something like that. They argue that the term AppStore/App Store does not have the characteristic of distinctiveness necessary for registering a name as a brand.
Nokia, the world's largest mobile-phone maker, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB and HTC Corp. (2498) all filed separate requests yesterday with the EU trademark agency in Alicante, Spain, seeking to invalidate Apple's trademark rights.
The companies "are seeking to invalidate Apple's trademark registration for 'APP STORE' and 'APPSTORE' because we believe that they should not have been granted because they both lack distinctiveness," according to a statement from Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world's largest software maker.
Of course, Apple is fighting to keep its patents and will probably succeed in doing so considering that when they were registered, there was also the possibility for any company to oppose the registration. The term AppStore/App Store was made known thanks to Apple's application store, so he said that people knew it and used it before, it's a bit absurd since then the request was accepted. In the USA, Amazon is asking for the invalidation of the registered trademarks for the same names, but they will most likely face the refusal of the American agencies. I assume that in the EU the situation will be identical, otherwise we will wake up with all kinds of obscure App Stores.
