Apple is defending its use of the phrase "App Store" in a new filing, saying that that Microsoft has failed to prove that the term should be left open for use by competing mobile application marketplaces, reports "TechFlash" (http://macte.ch/wfEJT).

In January Microsoft asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to deny Apple a trademark on the name "App Store," saying the term is generic and competitors should be able to use it. Apple applied for the trademark in 2008 for goods and services including "retail store services featuring computer software provided via the internet and other computer and electronic communication networks" and other related offerings, the article adds. Apple launched its App Store for the iPhone that year.

In January, Microsoft filed a motion for summary judgment with the agency's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, asking it to deny the trademark to Apple, reports "Infoworld." In its motion, Microsoft said "app" is a generic term for what is sold at the App Store and that "store" is generic for retail store services.

However, in its filing on Monday Apple argued: "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. 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."

-- Dennis Sellers