We'd say this was getting silly but that would imply that it wasn't already. Microsoft and Apple are still at each other's throat over the latter's trademark application for the term "App Store," with Microsoft now bringing in a Dr. Ronald Butters, Professor Emeritus at Duke University and a man with a taste for hardcore semantics. He says the compound noun "app store" is perfectly generic in that it "does not merely describe the thing named, it is the thing named." In a wildly geeky turn, he references the potential for someone discovering a use for masers and trying to trademark the term "maser store"
