Amazon and Apple have been told to hold settlement talks before their App Store trademark suit reaches the courts, according to Bloomberg.

The companies have been told to hold a meeting on 21 March, involving lead attorneys and “people who have full authority to negotiate and settle the case”, according to court filings.

A full trial is scheduled to take place in August.

Apple and Amazon have been embroiled in their dispute for some time, with other companies including Microsoft and GetJar also becoming involved in similar spats with Apple.

The issue is that Apple is trying to defend the use of the term “app store” to describe a store for apps, whereas its rivals have argued that this is a generic term.

Earlier this month, it was reported that a US judge had found that Amazon was not guilty of false advertising in using the term “app store”, again following a complaint made by Apple.