Apple Responds To Microsoft’s ‘App Store’ Trademark Dispute, Says App Store Isn’t Generic – [REPORT]

Last month, we reported that Microsoft had filed a dispute regarding Apple’s use of the ‘App Store’ trademark. The issue? – that the App Store trademark, because of its nature, is too generic. Microsoft claimed that by Apple using the trademark ‘App Store’ they were essentially not giving very many options to competitors in order to be able to compete fairly.

Today, Apple responded, reportedly highlighting that Microsoft’s use of its ‘Windows’ trademark could also be perceived as being generic.

In a none-too-subtle dig at its longtime rival, Apple points in part to Microsoft’s own defense of one of its most valuable trademarks.

“Having itself faced a decades-long genericness challenge to its claimed WINDOWS mark, 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,” says Apple in the filing. “Yet, Microsoft, missing the forest for the trees, does not base its motion on a comprehensive evaluation of how the relevant public understands the term APP STORE as a whole.”