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by Cococabasa 5567 days ago
Apple did the "App Store".

It reminds me of the Crayon story. Seems simple: wax drawing tool. But wooo! Crayola had to give up the name.

Personally, it's a tough call. They are all Crayons, they are all App Stores. Not sure what the solution is.

2 comments

Wikipedia claims the word Crayon goes back to the 1600s, and has photos of boxes with the word "crayon" from 20 years before the company that became "Crayola" existed.

So what name did they have to give up?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crayon

Better examples from Wikipedia are:

Aspirin, originally a trademark of Bayer AG

Butterscotch, originally a trademark of Parkinson's

Escalator, originally a trademark of Otis Elevator Company[4][5][6]

Heroin, originally a trademark of Bayer AG

Kerosene, originally a trademark of Abraham Gesner

Phillips-head screw, named after Henry F. Phillips

Pogo for the toy Pogo stick[6][7]

Sellotape, a brandname of The Sellotape Company

Thermos, originally a trademark of Thermos GmbH

Tipp-Ex, originally a trademark of German manufacturers Tipp-Ex GmbH & Co. KG

Yo-yo, originally a trademark of Duncan Yo-Yo Company

Zipper, originally a trademark of B.F. Goodrich[6][8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark

IT'S CALLED AN APPLICATION STORE, NOT AN APP STORE.