BlackBerry® World™ Development

[mapleleafs90]

Does RIM monitor app submission names at all. I don't mean for inappropriate names etc, but I have an App released last year. Droid Mobile Software has released an app with similar functionaility but added the tag Free at the end.

Personally I think thats garbage. 

[jtegen]

Yes that is totally garbage. If the app name is unique, you probably have a copyright to its name. You could trademark the name. In either case, I would contact them and ask them to change its name. I have one app, and a RIM employee released an app by the same name, with totally different functionality. I emailed them, but never heard back.

[mapleleafs90]

Yes I would say its unique. The funny thing is, they have 3 versions of their app.

1 Paid (Using their own name)
1 Free (Using their own name)
1 Free (Uses my apps name)

They actually have an extra release just to use my name, and their two free apps are EXACTLY the same..

[silver20]

AFAIK, if you want to enforce your rights over a trade name you must first obtain a registered trademark.

Even though you might have TM rights without registering, I've read you must register it before filing action.

Don't expect RIM to do anything about it if you don't have any legally enforceable rights yet.

It costs about $250 and 4 months to register, and your opponent can contest the registration.

[mapleleafs90]

If RIM doesn't do anything, I'll just rip off all their apps and release for free. I have no problem spending the week to do that to a company like this.

[jtegen]

It has been asked of RIM for years to enforce unique app name convention. There should be a simple process to find "near" matches of names upon submissions, allowing early submitters a priority.

[silver20]

Think there would be a problem with that, though. Search optimization is so important. Whoever named their app exactly what people are searching for would have a locked-in advantage.

It would be like saying no-one else can sell Salsa in a supermarket except the first guy who submitted Salsa. Everyone else has to call theirs Spicy Tomato Puree, or figure out some other weird unique name, while the customers all buy the one called Salsa because that's what they were looking for.

There's already a legal trademark system in place, anyone's welcome to use it. When you come out with your app, you can append TM to the name to let others know you claim the title as a trademark.

Then, if they don't respect your wishes -- maybe they have the right not to -- you can try registering the mark. If that's granted, you can file a take-down notice with App World, and I imagine in that case you would get your exclusive use enforced.

[mapleleafs90]

At the very least it should be removed because its a duplicate app. As I said they have one paid, one free, and one duplicate free with my app's name and free added at the end. Or does app world allow duplicate apps with different names.

In the case they do allow that, then I should be able to submit my App multiple times using different names.

[silver20]

Yes, you can.  That can help you search-optimize an app -- make 2 titles, optimized for the two most likely searches.  Submit those as trials, and have both point to one paid version.

[QuiteSimple]

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mapleleafs90 wrote:
If RIM doesn't do anything, I'll just rip off all their apps and release for free. I have no problem spending the week to do that to a company like this.

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It's kind of pointless, as this company is copycat, i.e. they have copied all their apps from other devs. So if you release free app you will hurt just another poor soul and not the copycat.

As for the names - they should be unique for a given vendor, i.e. you are not allowed to publish two apps with the same name. You can publish the same app under different names and that's ok (I've done it before to run A/B analysis - same app but with different name and different price).

Actually the SKU (that strange field when you fill the app description) is unique across the AppWorld, no idea why.