In what was a largely expected ruling, a district court judge in California yesterday denied Apple's motion for a preliminary injunction against Amazon attempting to bar the use of the word "Appstore" in conjunction with the Amazon Appstore.

The standard set for enforcing such an injunction is high - generally, the infringement on the trademark must be so clear that there isn't a genuine debate about whether or not consumers are likely to be confused, the infringement should be relatively obvious. Here, according the presiding judge, Apple failed to meet that burden, and was unable to establish any clear likelihood of confusion among consumers.

The trial date has been set for October 2012, so don't expect to hear much news about this legal battle for a while - unless it's about a settlement.

Reuters