Quote:
Originally Posted by
solipsism 
1) I understand its easy to forget something as simple as space between name, but why not do a quick search before you post? Orlando already took care of it so I wont go into it any further.
I had done the search in the past, posts shown below. Whoop-de-whorl me for spacing the detail two months out. You didn't participate in those threads, so I won't hold you for not remembering them. The salient point is the same. Distinctiveness plus use and and applicability to a specific market segment are what makes it trade-markable under Unitary Marks. I also didn't include the SM notation, but that is also part of the trademark (yes I know SM is Service Mark, but they are the same thing only SM is not on a single physical product).
Quote:
2) Are you claiming that a space difference between the name would allow another company to use it? If not, then why mention it. If so, then Amazons AppStore isnt stepping on Apples App Store trademark, according to you. Note the point of trademarks are to prevent confusion between brands. You cant use anything that is deemed confusion to the buyer.
No
first use in the specifically registered market space is only necessary factor to make it Apple's. Because it seems Apple has met the other needs for TM/SM under both Unitary Marks and Distinctiveness (which has nothing to do with dictionary word similarities). Here's my post from March where the specific USPTO sections are cited:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...6&postcount=71
An other post, different thread, which I self-cited the above and attacked the idea of generic words again;
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...3&postcount=79
I'm not posting off the cuff or making shit up. It is what it is on sound research. Yeah, I goofed a space two months later, wow, world is coming to an end -- Hiro actually isn't an infallible perfect machine
. I dare anyone to try to use that to go up against the USPTO rules. It won't work.
Quote:
PS: X Window System is the trademark for it, not Windows.
Umm, so? I wasn't saying they were the same thing. You are really trying hard to change the landscape and reshape the playing field by cherry-picking context. But you can't do that, this is all very settled law, it doesn't matter if laypersons don't know it inside out or not, the rules are the rules. Read the above linked USPTO stuff and you will be conversant enough to understand what lawyers will tell you about your business logos and rights, and how they will execute the paperwork.
X Window System used the term Window in a product name years before Microsoft did. Did anyone get bent out of shape, or sue? I don't remember any suits, someone with access to a legal database could give a definitive answer, but I really don't think so.
So we have precedent for TWO products using single letter different variations of the same generic capitalized word. Once somebody is first to use and TM/SM, the process limits the ability of a competitor to claim a trivial difference like
appstore, or my mistaken AppStore, as valid. If the differences are larger and obvious the second user can use it too. But this case isn't about a second user wanting to share, it is about a company, Microsoft, trying to completely invalidate an established trademark pre-emptively to some other MS use of something similar.
My guess from reading the USPTO stuff is the MS could have used something like the "Microsoft Mobile Apps"sm store and been perfectly fine. But they picked a fight that in all probability they will lose.
