Idiot Extraordinaire - King.com

[AnCap Dave]

Source

Not content with trying to own the word "Candy", King.com, the makers of Candy Crush Saga, also want to own the word "Saga". So they've have taken legal action against strategy game The Banner Saga.

On December 27, 2013, King.com filed a "Notice of Opposition" with the US Patent and Trademark Office. It says that because King has 13 trademarks with the word "saga" in them, Stoic's colorful strategy game isn't allowed to use the word.

As part of the filing, King allege the following. And I promise you, this is a real document, not a joke.

The "Applicant" is Stoic, who were applying for a trademark on The Banner Saga. A turn-based strategy game with a rich RPG element and nordic inspiration. The "Opposer" is King.com. Who make some puzzle games with candy in them.



"Deceptively similar"? What planet are these people from?

This is what The Banner Saga looks like.

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And this is what Candy Crush Saga looks like.

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King.com aren't seeking money. They "just" want Stoic's application for a trademark on The Banner Saga to be refused (which would force the developers to change the game's name).

We contacted Stoic, but they're unable to comment about legal matters. We also contacted King.com, and will update if we hear back.

I've seen some stupid legal actions in my time here, but this one takes the stupid cake.

Apparently king.com thinks we're fucking retarded because having other games with the word "saga" in them will cause us to lose our shit trying to find Candy Crush.

[AnCap Dave]

Well shit, apparently king.com gave us a double feature.

Source

When you have an intellectual property – especially one that's worth millions of dollars – you want to protect it. But can such protections ever go too far? That's the question a lot of industry watchers are asking this morning, as developers far and wide whose games include the word 'candy' are getting emails from Apple on behalf of King, the makers of Candy Crush Saga.

In a filing with the US trademark office dated February 6, 2013, King.com Limited registered claim to the word 'candy' as it pertains to video games and, strangely, clothing. On January 15, 2014 the filing was approved. And now, a mere five days later, reports are coming in from developers that they're being asked to remove their app (or prove that their game doesn't infringe upon the trademark).

"Lots of devs are frustrated cause it seems so ridiculous" says Benny Hsu, the maker of All Candy Casino Slots – Jewel Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land. Benny's game, which shares no similarities with King's properties aside from the word 'candy,' is one of a number of games that have been targeted by King.

Hsu contacted Sophie Hallstrom, King's IP paralegal, to discuss the matter further. Rather than the simple "oops, our mistake" that Benny was hoping for, he was given a very finite response. "Your use of CANDY SLOTS in your app icon uses our CANDY trade mark exactly, for identical goods, which amounts to trade mark infringement and is likely to lead to consumer confusion and damage to our brand," reads Hallstrom's reply. "The addition of only the descriptive term "SLOTS" does nothing to lessen the likelihood of confusion."

So how does a word like 'candy' get trademarked? According to Martin Schwimmer, a partner at the IP legal firm Leeson Ellis (and the man behind The Trademark Blog), it's all about how strong a connection the claimant has to that mark when it comes to a particular good or service. Think of Apple, for example. Nobody is going to expect the electronics giant to lay claim over the fruit, but if someone were to try to market an electronic device under that name, you'd better believe their lawyers would swoop in.

So the question then, is whether or not there's a strong enough connection between the word 'candy' and video games as it pertains to Candy Crush Saga. According to the US Trademark Office, the answer is a bona fide yes.

Still, holding a trademark and being able to enforce it are entirely different things. Schwimmer is quick to point out the difference between suggestive marks and unique ones. "Someone can't plausibly claim that they came up with the term TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES on their own.  An incredibly unique trademark like that is somewhat easy to protect." But something generic – a dictionary word like candy? That can be a lot trickier.

"Suggestive marks are protectable, but the problem is that third parties can claim that they thought up their mark on their own." And in the case of something as generic as 'candy,' it doesn't seem that farfetched to think that a lot of developers may have.

"As to how far King can enforce its rights, it will be a function of how strong its mark has become, and how similar the third party name is.  It would likely be able to enforce its rights against marks that are connotatively, phonetically or visually similar, for games that are conceivably competitive," Schwimmer tells us. "King can't go after candy companies because candy companies don't use the term CANDY as a trademark – they use it to identify their product."

If you're a developer who has received one of these letters from King, Schwimmer's advice is simple: call a lawyer. "A trademark lawyer can be very useful in obtaining a coexistence agreement.  Often a trademark owner will accept a settlement in which the possibility of confusion is mitigated, perhaps because the developer will not expand into areas more directly competitive with the trademark owner."

But in an App Store littered with small indie developers, this is an option that seems out of reach for developers like Benny Hsu. "Myself and other indie developers don't have the money or resources to fight back... I plan on changing the name if that is what I must do."

With Apple seemingly complicit in King's claims – the letter Tsu initially received came through the iTunes legal department – one can't help but wonder what the future of the App Store and suggestive trademarks might be.

"Last year I learned I couldn't use the word MEMORY because it was trademarked," said Hsu. "Now I wonder what other common words will be trademarked in the App Store."

They want to trademark the word "Candy."

[MrBogosity]

Now all they have to do is trademark "crush" and go for the trifecta.

[AnCap Dave]

Now all they have to do is trademark "crush" and go for the trifecta.

Would not be surprised if that actually happens.

[evensgrey]

Would not be surprised if that actually happens.

that would put them up against the already established Crush soft drink brand, which is about a century old now.

[Travis Retriever]

http://www.cracked.com/article_20559_the-6-most-ridiculous-things-people-claimed-to-legally-own.html
Sadly not the only case of this kind of bs happening.

[AnCap Dave]

And now King.com's bullshit has reached a new low.

Open letter to King.com who wants to cancel the registration of the CandySwipe trademark.

Dear King,

Congratulations! You win! I created my game CandySwipe in memory of my late mother who passed away at an early age of 62 of leukemia. I released CandySwipe in 2010 five months after she passed and I made it because she always liked these sorts of games. In fact, if you beat the full version of the android game, you will still get the message saying "...the game was made in memory of my mother, Layla..." I created this game for warmhearted people like her and to help support my family, wife and two boys 10 and 4. Two years after I released CandySwipe, you released Candy Crush Saga on mobile; the app icon, candy pieces, and even the rewarding, "Sweet!" are nearly identical. So much so, that I have hundreds of instances of actual confusion from users who think CandySwipe is Candy Crush Saga, or that CandySwipe is a Candy Crush Saga knockoff. So when you attempted to register your trademark in 2012, I opposed it for "likelihood of confusion" (which is within my legal right) given I filed for my registered trademark back in 2010 (two years before Candy Crush Saga existed). Now, after quietly battling this trademark opposition for a year, I have learned that you now want to cancel my CandySwipe trademark so that I don't have the right to use my own game's name. You are able to do this because only within the last month you purchased the rights to a game named Candy Crusher (which is nothing like CandySwipe or even Candy Crush Saga). Good for you, you win. I hope you're happy taking the food out of my family's mouth when CandySwipe clearly existed well before Candy Crush Saga.

I have spent over three years working on this game as an independent app developer. I learned how to code on my own after my mother passed and CandySwipe was my first and most successful game; it's my livelihood, and you are now attempting to take that away from me. You have taken away the possibility of CandySwipe blossoming into what it has the potential of becoming. I have been quiet, not to exploit the situation, hoping that both sides could agree on a peaceful resolution. However, your move to buy a trademark for the sole purpose of getting away with infringing on the CandySwipe trademark and goodwill just sickens me.

This also contradicts your recent quote by Riccardo in "An open letter on intellectual property" posted on your website which states, "We believe in a thriving game development community, and believe that good game developers – both small and large - have every right to protect the hard work they do and the games they create."

I myself was only trying to protect my hard work.

I wanted to take this moment to write you this letter so that you know who I am. Because I now know exactly what you are. Congratulations on your success!

Sincerely,
Albert Ransom
President (Founder), Runsome Apps Inc.

[AnCap Dave]

Here's another article on this issue. It also includes a link to King.com's bullshit attempt at calming everyone down about the way they've been acting.

Source

Oops, they did it again. Back in January, Candy Crush Saga maker King underwent a great deal of public scrutiny about the choices they've made in the world of IP protection. Initially it was about a trademark on the word CANDY, but as the week unfolded it turned into a battle over Stoic's The Banner Saga trademark, and then even accusations of cloning. King CEO Riccardo Zacconi managed to quell the internet's furor with a seemingly heartfelt response on the issues that had been brought up.

But now some new information has been brought to our attention that doesn't quite jive with what Zacconi was preaching.

Lost in the shuffle of that January week was a little story about Albert Ransom, the creator of CandySwipe. As the creator of a match-3 game involving candy that pre-dated every incarnation of Candy Crush, Ransom had been fighting the CANDY CRUSH SAGA trademark for months. And he told Gamezebo that he intended to fight their mark on the word CANDY, too.

Now, only weeks after our initial article, King is fighting back.

At the time of Ransom's filing, King had little ground to stand on. Ransom's game predated theirs, and he already held the mark for CANDYSWIPE, so it was up to the courts to decide. So here's what King did: they bought an earlier trademark from another company, and are using that to try and have Ransom's CANDYSWIPE trademark registration cancelled.

The mark in question, CANDY CRUSHER, has been tied with game software and mobile applications (according to King's filing) since 2004. It was acquired by King from its previous owner, AIM Productions N.V., on January 10, 2014.

According to Ransom, the game Candy Crusher bears resemblance to neither Candy Crush Saga nor Candyswipe.

While King has every right to protect their IP (and purchasing an earlier mark like CANDY CRUSHER makes sense in this context), using that mark to try and shut down a game that predated yours goes against everything Zacconi said last month. Here are a few excerpts from his open letter in case you need a reminder;

"At its simplest, our policy is to protect our IP and to also respect the IP of others."

"We believe in a thriving game development community, and believe that good game developers - both small and large - have every right to protect the hard work they do and the games they create."

"Before we launch any game, we do a thorough search of other games in the marketplace and review relevant trademark filings to ensure that we are not infringing anyone else's IP. We have launched hundreds of games. Occasionally, we get things wrong. When we do, we take appropriate action."

In this case, appropriate action seems to mean "purchase an earlier trademark and use it to try and shut down the IP that we're being accused of infringing upon."

Riccardo's open letter also closed with "if you want to contact me directly on this, or indeed any other aspect of what we do – please feel free to drop me a line at rz[at]king(dot)com." So when crafting this article, I did just that. But instead of a response from Riccardo, I was contacted by a third party PR representative on behalf of King who advised me of the following: "King's official position on IP protection is outlined in Riccardo's open letter."

Circular logic breaks my brain a little.

With no real response from King on the subject, Ransom's story is the only side of this we're able to tell. And it's a fairly damning tale.  While King eventually did some damage control surrounding their January woes with Zacconi's open letter, their actions against Ransom seem to violate the very spirit of what Zacconi wrote.

If you're in the mood for another open letter, Albert Ransom has written one in response to King. You can read the whole thing on candyswipe.com.