Amazon isn’t the only company getting visits from Apple’s lawyers over the use of the phrase “App Store.” The company is also after the third-party app market GetJar.
GetJar, which bills itself as “the world’s largest free app store” and distributes apps for Android, BlackBerry, Java, Symbian and the mobile web, received a cease and desist letter from Apple’s attorneys over the use of the phrase “app store.”
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In the letter, Apple requests that GetJar “immediately cease all use of Apple’s APP STORE mark on the website getjar.com” and “agrees to refrain from such uses in the future.”
Apple holds a trademark on the phrase, “App Store” and hasn’t been shy about trying to prevent others from using that term. In March, the company sued Amazon for trademark infringement, after Amazon launched its Android Appstore.
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Earlier this week, the court refused to grant Apple’s preliminary injunction in the case, but the issue won’t be decided until the trial this fall.
While it makes sense that Apple might target Amazon, a large company who competes with Apple in multiple markets, why target GetJar?
One possible answer: Apple might have to prove that it is addressing other trademark violators, in order to give its Amazon lawsuit more merit.
In a statement, Ilja Laurs, CEO of GetJar said:
“We were surprised to get this cease and desist letter from Apple which asks us to drop the use of the term ‘app store’ in the ‘About Us’ section of our website and in any other marketing materials. GetJar has been in the business of offering apps to consumers since 2005, well before Apple, and helped to pioneer the model that the general public understands as an app store today. We have built a strong, global and growing business around this model, and plan to continue to use the phrase ‘app store’ to describe what we do. This move by Apple is yet more proof that the company tends to act as if it is above the law, and even as one of the smaller players in the space, we won’t be bullied by Apple.”