Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has given up its fight with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) over app stores—specifically, its trademark lawsuit over the name “App Store” for an online store where customers can buy apps. All Things D reported this week that on Tuesday (July 9), after months of settlement talks, Apple finally asked the judge in the case to dismiss the two-year-old lawsuit. There wasn’t much explanation—an Apple spokeswoman grandly pointed to
900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads, while Amazon just said it was relieved the legal ordeal was finally over.
But it’s not really such a mystery. In March 2011, when Apple filed its lawsuit, the iPad was less than a year old and the Kindle, introduced in November 2007, looked like a better-established competitive threat. (And it was, just not to the iPad.) Two years later, the iPad is a solid winner, the lawsuit is a waste of money, and the whole thing probably looks silly even to the Apple executives who helped gin it up. A name, however generic it sounds, can be a critical success factor for an unfamiliar element of E-Commerce—but once customers figure it out, they don’t need the name any more. Now will…