Apple's legal action against Amazon following the launch of its Appstore for Android depends on one, single issue: whether the term 'app store' is generic or not.

Both Amazon and Microsoft have argued that Apple's claim to the phrase 'app store' is invalid as consumers understand it refers to marketplaces in general, rather than Apple's specific iOS offering - app stores not the App Store. 

It's a line of attack that has forced Apple into the bizarre position of arguing that the term 'app store' doesn't mean a store for selling apps, despite that association presumably being a major factor in the naming of the App Store in the first place.

What the consumer thinks

"Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words 'app store' together denote a store for apps," the company said in a filing to the federal court in Oakland, California.

Bloomberg reports that Apple went on to state that the term isn't commonly used by businesses to describe their own marketplaces, despite the lawsuit itself coming in response to Amazon's decision to do just that.

"Because the mark 'app store' isn’t generic, Amazon’s Appstore for Android service isn’t an 'app store'," Bloomberg quotes Apple as saying in the filing.

Apple's action seeks a court order to block Amazon's use of the 'Appstore' name, as well as a reimbursement for damages it believes it has suffered as a result.

This latest filing comes in response to a request by Amazon that the court throw the case out, claiming the words 'app store' are "unprotectable" in law.

[source: Bloomberg]