While many have written off the Kindle Fire as not being a direct competitor to the iPad, TUAW reports that Apple has nevertheless taken notice of the device, and has updated their “App Store” lawsuit to target the Kindle Fire.
The lawsuit, which directly targets Amazon, revolves around usage of the term “App Store,” which Apple is fighting for the exclusive right to use, claiming that they were the first to put the term into widespread use.
Amazon has now amended the lawsuit to address changes in advertising put in place by Amazon. Apple claims that Amazon has recently changed their advertising from “Amazon Appstore for Android” to “Amazon Appstore” in their Kindle Fire advertisements in an effort to make their app market sound more like Apple’s App Store.
Apple calls this a deliberate attempt to deceive customers, and claims that Amazon’s use of the term will reduce consumer’s opinions of Apple’s App Store and damage the company’s reputation.
Apple is in the process of trying to obtain trademarks for the terms “App Store” and “Appstore,” despite complaints from Amazon, HTC, Nokia and others. In the course of battle over these trademarks, Apple has gone so far as to call the Amazon Appstore “inferior,” and a “security threat.”
