Interesting piece in today’s WSJ entitled “Seeking Fame in Apple’s Sea of Apps.”
The article notes that Apple gets 30% of any third-party app sales, and that as of today customers had downloaded more than 1.5 billion free and paid apps.
But most revealing was this tale of trademark infringement:
Some developers try to capitalize on popular brands by embedding those brand names into their own apps’ descriptions. For example, a recent search for EA, the brand for game giant Electronic Arts Inc., turned up 15 games from a company called Digital Chocolate Inc. A close look at the games’ description showed that the word “each” was abbreviated to “ea.” Digital Chocolate Chief Executive Trip Hawkins was a co-founder of EA.
An EA spokesman called the tactic “barnacle marketing.” On Monday, Digital Chocolate stopped using the abbreviation.
About Joel Rothman
Joel B. Rothman represents clients in intellectual property infringement litigation involving patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, defamation, trade libel, unfair competition, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and commercial matters. Joel’s litigation practice also includes significant focus on electronic discovery issues such as e-discovery management and motion practice relating to e-discovery.
