Apple has lost an appeal to the Federal Court of Australia to trademark the term "app store," as the company looks to prevent rivals such as Google and Microsoft from using the term.
Apple's bid for a trademark on "app store" was previously rejected by the country's Registrar of Trademarks.
The term was made famous by Apple, with millions of users worldwide using the company's "app store" to download content and applications onto their smartphones. Justice David Yates, however, found that the term should not receive any restrictions due to its broad usage.
Apple's argument was that, before it began to use the term, "app store" was not commonly used. In fact, the word "app," which has been a shortcut for the word "application," was also previously not a common word. Apple said that combining the words "app" and "store" had a creative element involved, which meant that the term should belong to Apple.
Justice Yates, however, ruled that "app" has already been widely used among technology circles for years prior to Apple using it. While Apple and its iPhones brought the word wider publicity, this does not mean that the company invented the term.
The judge also determined that "app store" does not distinguish the service as being one by Apple, and that "store" was unoriginal and did not lead to an altogether new meaning when combined with the term "app."
In addition, Justice Yates ruled that while the App Store of Apple featured online operations, the term is now allowed to be used by retail operations that provide a similar service, even from physical retail locations.
Erhan Karabardak, a Cooper Mills lawyer that specializes in technology and intellectual property, said that the decision by Justice Yates can be claimed as a victory by companies and businesses that wish to utilize commonly used descriptions for the services that they offer.
"It is a lesson to trademark applicants that trademarks should be as distinctive as possible to have a chance at being registered, and avoid the pitfalls of seeking to register trademarks that are descriptive of goods and services they provide," Karabardak said.
After the rulings were made, the appeal by Apple was dismissed and the company was given an order to pay all the associated costs.
Despite the rejection, Apple still holds a lengthy list of approved trademarks, which includes several surprising words and phrases such as "Aqua, "Bonjour," "Carbon," Pages," "Passbook," "Think different," and "There's an app for that."
