You can’t name a trademark in App Store description

We were forced to rename our app Pomodoro One to Tomato One. Okay, so the word Pomodoro is a trademark. I can live with that. I’m not happy about it, but I can live with it.

Then we get this: Description, Screenshot and linked Web Site are still infringing our trademarks.

The guy has a problem with our description saying “App is for Pomodoro Technique”. That’s a trademark infringement according to the guy. Mentioning it. In the description. It’s like selling a soup and saying it contains Vegeta.

Unlike Vegeta, this people don’t have a product. They have nothing. Just a trademark, that’s their product. Isn’t this just ridiculous? We are not doing harm to their business, because they don’t have a business!

Are they going to sue Wikipedia because there is an article about Pomodoro Technique? With this logic they should.

What’s worse is Apple’s reaction: Upon receipt of written notification from Troll agreeing that the changes made to your app resolve this matter to Troll’s satisfaction, we will close this matter for our records.

The troll asks to remove their trademark from our description, and we need to do everything we can to satisfy the troll. And this is what Apple cares about. Satisfying people who don’t have a product, who don’t do the work — people who just file a trademark.

There are days I’m so glad we build desktop apps and always have the opportunity to quit App Store.