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Consider I have an app called MyDiary which is (you guessed) a digital diary and was released on Apple AppStore 6 months ago. After a few months, someone develops an app called MyDiary Free and Plus (paid), which is, as you imagined, a digital diary. Apart from 'change your app name' and 'stop moaning and live on', what can realistically be done in that respect? It's definitely an IP offense! :(

joe
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  • No idea bro. btw this is not a programming question, I think this will be closed ;) – HericDenis Dec 06 '12 at 17:23
  • fair enough :P but i thought it was the best place to find advice with regards to that. hasnt anyone here been ripped off like that yet? – joe Dec 06 '12 at 17:25
  • Yeah I can't figure out other place better than this to ask either, I would do the same :D – HericDenis Dec 06 '12 at 17:36

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you can report it to apple.. iTunes Content Dispute

andrew lattis
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Actually it doesn't sound like an IP offense unless they have completely copied your app, if anything it would have to do with branding.

I've seen app names change on my iPod/iPad a lot so these little app name clashes must happen all the time.

Patents, trademarks and the such can be secured... but do you really want to go through all that?

rwheadon
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    well, if it does essentially the same thing, i assume it's a copyright matter. obviously, i dont have deep pockets to get started on that, it's more a matter of curiosity. otherwise i'll put down some 'farmville mobile' and enjoy buckets of cash while no one notices it. but like, i also assume people do at least one search to see if there is an app called 'farmville' before trying to release theirs. – joe Dec 06 '12 at 17:30
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Well I really dont think you can say you came up with 'my' and 'diary'. If you tried to apply for a trademark for that it would get rejected. It's in no-way original and descriptive of the product you offer.

Move on, or come up with a better name.

jack
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  • well, i used that name/functionality as an example. imagine if you made pinterest and there comes 'pinterest plus' for 99c, doing roughly the same thing. it's not really a case of changing my app name, there's definitely a conflict there. try to see a bigger picture. – joe Dec 10 '12 at 01:22
  • or even, i can create a *perfect* twitter client using their apis. end users will never know it's not officially twitter since it does everything available. can i call it 'twitter hd' or some crap like that? i'm 110% sure that twitter would sue me, even if accessing and providing service thru their apis is theoretically perfectly fine. – joe Dec 10 '12 at 01:28