No app for that: Apple’s false ad suit over Amazon Appstore thrown out

One of the more unusual tech clashes of the past year or two has involved Apple’s crusade to control how its competitors use the term “app store.” The company has sparred with Microsoft and other competitors in both US and European trademark offices over whether Apple should be able to trademark either “app store” or “appstore,” since both apps and stores have been around for quite a while now.

In the case of Amazon’s Appstore, Apple has actually moved the battle into a federal court. So far, its quest to stop Amazon from using the phrase “Appstore for Android” has been going nowhere. That trend continues today, as Apple has lost entirely on one of its claims—that Amazon’s use of Appstore went beyond a trademark violation and actually constituted false advertising.

Amazon moved to throw that allegation out without a trial, and today it succeeded. US District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, who is overseeing the case, issued a 9-page order [PDF] in which she reviews Apple’s arguments as to why the company should be allowed to move ahead with a false advertising case.

Apple pointed to TrafficSchool.com v. eDriver Inc., a case involving a company whose use of websites that contained “dmv.org” was found to falsely imply affiliation with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. It also tried to use a 1983 case called Eastern Airlines Inc v. New York Air Lines Inc., in which plaintiff Eastern Airlines was able to win a false advertising case based on a competitor’s description of “air shuttle” services, even though it could not trademark “shuttle.”

But Judge Hamilton found those examples unconvincing and has thrown out Apple’s false advertising claim. “Apple has presented no evidence of any Amazon website or advertisement that attempts to mimic Apple’s site or advertising,” she wrote. “The court finds no support for the proposition that Amazon has expressly or impliedly communicated that its Appstore for Android possesses the characteristics and qualities that the public has come to expect from the Apple APP STORE and/or Apple products.”

Since she found so little merit in the false advertising claims, it’s hard to imagine Hamilton is going to see the remaining trademark case in a less skeptical light. But that portion of the case is moving ahead and is currently scheduled for a jury trial in August of this year.