Apple could find that its challenges against the use of the term 'App Store' will come to nothing, if a recent judgement is a sign of things to come.

Although Apple is arguing that the use of the term by anyone other than it is confusing to its customers, which at its worst is patronising, US District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton disagrees and said yesterday that the cappuccino company had been unable to provide any evidence of "actual confusion".

Hamilton was responding to calls from Apple to prevent Amazon from using the words 'app' and 'store' to describe its online retail operation for sales of software applications. If that sounds unfair to you, you'd probably get along with the judge.

"I'm troubled by the showing that you've [Apple] made so far, but that's where you're likely not to prevail at this early juncture," she is quoted as having said at a court hearing yesterday, in a report at Bloomberg.

So far so bad then for the case that Apple launched in March with a very leaky argument. The term "App Store" is about as generic as they come, unless you count toy store, pet store or cake store, so we prefer Amazon's response, which at least gives users a little credit.

"Customers who have shopped for and purchased expensive mobile devices are, at the very minimum, sophisticated enough to know, if they choose to buy apps at all, that the apps they acquire must be compatible with the device they own," it said in its response to the March complaint.