Apple has targeted yet another company on its path toward making the term "App Store" its own.
A cease-and-desist letter from Apple, represented by the law offices of New York's Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, has surfaced today and takes aim at GetJar, a company that claims to have "the world's largest free app store."
In the letter--which was acquired by The Wall Street Journal and dated June 22, 2011--Apple's lawyers take aim at GetJar's claim, specifically the use of the term "App Store." Apple asserts that those two words relate to its own mobile application service, and that GetJar should not be using them to talk about its own.
"GetJar's use of Apple's APP STORE mark improperly suggests to consumers that numerous companies offer an APP STORE mobile download service, when in fact the term APP STORE refers exclusively to Apple's groundbreaking download service," the letter reads. Apple follows by suggesting that GetJar use "mobile download service" or "application download service," instead.
The letter then goes on to note that "Apple takes protecting its mark seriously" and that GetJar should stop using the words on its site and elsewhere, as well as agreeing to do so in the future.
In a statement provided to Mashable, GetJar's CEO Ilja Laurs said Apple's cease-and-desist letter was a "surprise."
"GetJar has been in the business of offering apps to consumers since 2005, well before Apple, and helped to pioneer the model that the general public understands as an app store today," Laurs said. "We have built a strong, global and growing business around this model, and plan to continue to use the phrase 'app store' to describe what we do."
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