Many unique app names are taken by apps that are not on the App Store. It would be nice if Apple could provide a convenient way to forward requests to the developers of those apps to remove or rename their app. This could appear in a developer's App Store Connect page as a notification on the unreleased app.
I’ve seen a few posts here over the years from developers who believe that app names are unique. Why do you believe that? In my experience, Apple will approve apps with identical names to apps that are already on the store (one of my apps now has two such competitors).
Regarding your idea, why do you need Apple to forward your request? Can’t you just contact them directly? Beware, if Apple acts as middleman they may want 30% commission on what you pay for the app name!
Apple prevents my apps from taking existing names even before my App is in the app store. If the whole set of released + unreleased app names must have 0 collisions, then I may not know who to contact for the right to the name of an unreleased app. Of course it's also possible that only released apps block unreleased ones and not vice-versa.
