Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the U.S. District Court for Northern California has ruled that Amazon ^[1] will not have to immediately cease use of the name “Appstore.” Apple ^[2] had filed suit claiming that the company holds trademark rights to the term. Hamilton, in her ruling, said that while Apple has invested significant amounts of money in advertising and publicity for the Apple App Store, the term is not exclusive to them.

Apple first filed suit against Amazon in March, when the site began offering applications for the Google Android platform. Amazon countersued in April, claiming that “App Store” is a generic term. In her ruling, Hamilton said that the term “app store” is a descriptive term used by a number of companies. None of this approximates the lengths ^[3] Microsoft has gone to in its war of words with Apple.

Read more at CNET ^[4].