Microsoft moves to strike Apple response on font

Microsoft took an unusual tack late Tuesday in an attempt to get the upper hand over Apple in their ongoing App Store trademark dispute. A new motion to strike claimed that Apple's response to its motion to dismiss was invalid because it was too dense. At 31 pages in a small font, Apple's response broke the rules citing that the response had to be no more than 25 pages in 11-point or larger, Microsoft said.

The core of Apple's text was 25 pages, but the rule is supposed to include the table of contents and the authorities list.

Trademark appeal board attorney Cheryl Butler had suspended a briefing on Microsoft's motion to dismiss until it had an opportunity to review the objection.

Very specific word-related issues had been brought into the trademark dispute before by Apple in the response, but its argument had been more directly material to the case. It cited an online Corpus of Contemporary American English that showed 88 percent of references to "app store" being for Apple's portal.

Microsoft has argued that the term "app store" is too generic to be trademarked. Apple has argued not just that it's commonly associated with its own shop but that the term was a deliberate play on the word "apple." [via Reg Hardware]

By Electronista Staff

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iPod, iPhone, industry, Microsoft, App Store, mobile phones, Apple, iPad, USPTO