Australian court rejects Apple’s “App Store” trademark appeal

Apple is a company that is well known for taking care of its intellectual property, but here is an instance where the court did not find the ruling in Apple’s favor. An Australian court decided to throw out Apple’s appeal of a prior ruling which saw the “app store” moniker to be unavailable for trademark due to the fact that the term is deemed to be too descriptive. Federal Court of Australia Justice David Yates threw out Apple’s appeal of a decision that was handed down by the country’s Registrar of Trade Marks, which denied rights to the term “app store,” and asked the company to pay the resulting legal costs which were associated with the case.

An Australian court on Wednesday local time tossed Apple’s appeal of a prior ruling that found the “app store” moniker not available for trademark because the term is too descriptive. Federal Court of Australia Justice David Yates dismissed Apple’s appeal of a decision handed down by the country’s Registrar of Trade Marks denying rights to the term “app store,” and ordered the company to pay resultant legal costs associated with the case, reports The Sydney Morning Herald. “Apple has not established that, because of the extent to which it has used the mark before the filing date, it does distinguish the designated services as being Apple’s services,” Justice Yates said. “It follows that APP STORE must be taken as not being capable of distinguishing the designated services as Apple’s services. The application must, therefore, be rejected. “This is not the first time Apple ran into trouble over the “app store” name, which some argue is a vague or descriptive term that should not be protected. In 2011, Apple filed suit against Amazon for violating an “App Store” trademark, which at the time was under review. Competing companies like Microsoft balked at Apple’s application and sought to block approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.