Microsoft, in its most recent lawsuit with Apple, is beginning to sound like a college professor wanting punishments for failure to follow strict essay guidelines.
According to court documents found by Geek Wire, Microsoft is asking the court to strike Apple’s filings in defense of the “App Store” trademark because the font is too small and the number of pages exceeds those allotted.
The documents point out that the font in Apple’s response brief is below the 11 point minimum. Furthermore, Microsoft’s filings say, there are 31 pages in the filing, which is six pages more than allowed under the legal rules.
Maybe they were getting a headache reading all that boring stuff in such small font?
Either way, the broader lawsuit is part of Microsoft’s contention that the term “App Store” is too generic to be exclusively used by Apple. And they may have a case there.
When Apple came out with the App Store, the term “app” wasn’t used frequently. But now the term is dropped daily to describe applications sold for all platforms: Android, BlackBerry, Microsoft, and of course, Apple. As pointed out by John Brownlee in Cult of Mac, “App Store, then, is as generic a term as ‘clothes store.’”
To call attention to the generic usage of the term “app store,” Microsoft’s filings quote none other than Steve Jobs: “In addition to Google’s own app marketplace, Amazon, Verizon and Vodafone have all announced that they are creating their own app stores for Android,” Jobs said. “There will be at least four app stores on Android which customers must search through to find the app they want and developers will need to work to distribute their apps and get paid.”
Android App Store, Microsoft App Store. The terms seem natural these days. It’s a store where we buy apps. Microsoft seems to think so too, hence the petty lawsuit maneuvering.
