Apple, Amazon end ‘app store’ lawsuit
(Reuters) - Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc have ended their lawsuit over who has the right to use the “app store” name, clearing the way for both companies to use it. — U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California …
Context & Ripple Effects
The fight had already been weakened by a January 2013 dismissal of Apple’s case over Amazon’s use of “App Store”, after an earlier German dispute had forced Amazon to stop taking new “Appstore” submissions there. The agreement closes the remaining U.S. naming conflict without establishing a court-tested boundary for the term.
The settlement lands while Apple and Amazon are both increasing advertising spending amid tablet competition, making a shared app-store label more commercially relevant than a standalone trademark claim.
First-order effects
- Apple and Amazon can each use the “app store” name, ending the litigation costs and branding uncertainty attached to the dispute.
- Amazon’s app-submission operation is no longer tied to the unresolved U.S. claim, though the earlier German restriction on new Appstore apps shows that naming disputes can still have market-specific consequences.
Second-order effects
- With the naming fight removed, Apple and Amazon can concentrate competitive spending on tablet buyers and their software ecosystems rather than defending exclusive control of a generic-sounding retail label.
Third-order effects
- Because the parties ended the case rather than obtaining a definitive ruling, platform operators retain an incentive to resolve contested marketplace terminology through coexistence agreements instead of creating judicial precedent.
The trend: Mobile-platform competition is putting more value on the ecosystem around devices, while making exclusive claims over broadly descriptive marketplace terms harder to sustain.