Apple submits rebuttal in Microsoft trademark dispute

Tech giant Apple has responded to software rival Microsoft, releasing its rebuttal in the battle over its intention to trademark the phrase “App Store”.

Microsoft argues the term is too generic now that everyone is making apps, and says the trademark should be shot down. But Apple has offered a new defence.

“Having itself faced a decades-long genericness challenge to its claimed WINDOWS mark, Microsoft should be well aware that the focus in evaluating genericness is on the mark as a whole and requires a fact-intensive assessment of the primary significance of the term to a substantial majority of the relevant public,” Apple says, according to Politico.

“Yet, Microsoft, missing the forest for the trees, does not base its motion on a comprehensive evaluation of how the relevant public understands the term APP STORE as a whole.”

Apple says it uses the term “App Store” in a unique way and is associated with the phrase.