Apple and Amazon end fight over ‘App Store’ name

appstore

A couple of days after Apple’s App Store began celebrating its 5th anniversary by giving away popular apps for free, the company has filed an agreement not to pursue Amazon further over the use of the name ‘App Store.’

This battle over the trademark on the App Store name dates back to 2011, when Amazon launched its Appstore for Android. Apple filed a lawsuit shortly after its launch, while Amazon (and Microsoft) believed the name to be too generic for Apple to trademark. A portion of Apple’s lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year, when they failed to show “real evidence of actual confusion” between the two storefronts.

Martin Glick, a lawyer for Amazon, said in an interview, “This was a decision by Apple to unilaterally abandon the case, and leave Amazon free to use ‘appstore.'”

“We no longer see a need to pursue our case,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. “With more than 900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads, customers know where they can purchase their favorite apps.”

Now that the two companies have gotten that out of the way, they can move on to more important things.

[via MacRumors, image via Rob Boudon]

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