GetJar has come out fighting after the company received a Cease & Desist (C&D) notice from Apple for its use of the term “app store.” GetJar has issued an official statement to the explaining, but GetJar CMO Patrick Mork has also outlined the company’s position in a blog post.
In it, Mork says the dispute is now really about Apple vs. GetJar. “It would be presumptuous of us to think so given the difference in size and scale that’s apparent between the two companies,” he writes. “Better yet, we don’t even compete with Apple. Nobody can on iOS as they’re a closed ecosystem. We merely re-direct Apple users to Apple’s App Store as a courtesy. We do this for free with nothing in return. We don’t even get much Apple traffic and our Android traffic is hundreds of times larger and strategically far more important. Why do we even do it? Because as the largest free app store that serves consumers on over 2,500 devices in 190 countries we don’t discriminate against Apple users, although Apple apparently chooses to discriminate against us.”
Mork goes on to remind readers that Apple filed to register “App Store” in 2008 with the USPTO and was denied the mark. The company filed again and was given a “provisional” registration under the condition that it could trademark App Store if nobody opposed the registration. As Mork points out, Microsoft, among others, did indeed oppose it. “So for Apple to be going around threatening or suing others on the basis of a tenuous ‘ownership’ claim of a generic name that isn’t 100% theirs is seriously ‘taking-the-piss’ as the English would say and we would probably use more colorful language here in the US,” Mork writes. 
Mork believes that what Apple may be getting hot under the collar about is the fact that GetJar is trying to give apps away for free to consumers, noting that the company recently shifted its positioning from Appsolutely Everything to Appsolutely FREE. He then highlights the number of actions being taken by Apple and others in the mobile space, saying: “If Apple isn’t suing Amazon, it’s suing start-ups. Now Microsoft, who is struggling to gain traction with Windows Mobile, is charging OEM’s for using Android using our country’s broken patent system. Where are all of these law suits and threats getting us? Is anyone actually worrying about whether app developers and content providers make enough money to keep the lights on?”
In conclusion, Mork says that GetJar won’t be subject to this kind of bullying, and that the company will not “Cease & Desist”. To this end, it is starting a Facebook Cause called The Open And Free App Movement (#OFAM) “to encourage every pissed off developer, start-up, carrier, OEM or NGO who is fed up with this crap to make their voice heard”. You can friend the movement on Facebook here.
