If we're guessing, another reasonable guess is that they worked out a licensing deal so they wouldn't have to fight Amazon but they could still go after the next guy that tries it.

Right, but that is the same as a loss being expected. They want to wait for someone that they think they can make a winning case against. Right?

Not really. What they want is to protect their Trademark and avoid direct competition. Licensing serves to protect the mark in a way that just ignoring Amazon's behavior doesn't.

Apologies, I should have asked if you have evidence that they licensed it? If so, that would require Amazon to note it in their site, no? I see no reason to think that is the case.

You're on 3rd order assumptions at this point

This feels like a useful metric, but one I haven't really heard asserted before. Care to elaborate?

It's nothing formal just saying an assumption based on an assumption keeps having lower chances of being correct the further you take it.

Companies also drop cases where winning is simply not worth the money. Owning an App Store trademark doesn’t seem be valuable in the way say iPad is because it’s not a separate product.

It might have been a settlement out of court?

That isn't the same as dropped, to me. So, maybe?

Maybe it was part of the settlement that they "drop the case"...