Candy Crush Goes Trademark Legal; Candy Crush Gets Trolled
from the gonna-be-a-busy-day dept
Candy Crush is the mobile game that finally got everyone to stop playing scrabble and pictionary with their friends during their morning commutes. It was developed by King.com. King.com then turned around and applied for a trademark on the word "candy" (for games and a variety of merchandise) and is now going completely bonkers in the mobile app space, sending out letters to any app on the market that includes that oh-so-unique identifier of a word.
Stories about legal threats over generic terms are a dime a dozen, but at least those fights tend to be over generic phrases or groups of words. Having a trademark in the mobile app space on "candy" is insane. But that doesn't mean some folks can't have some fun with it. Take the indie game makers who have started The Candy Jam, for instance, which is simply a game that requires players to create any sort of game that has to do with candy.
WHY? BECAUSE TRADEMARKING COMMON WORDS IS RIDICULOUS AND BECAUSE IT GIVES US AN OCCASION TO MAKE ANOTHER GAMEJAM :DWell, okay then. If an insidious game developer wants to go legal on a generic word, apparently some folks out there will give them all the generic word targets they can handle. The apparent leading game idea thus far, judging by the Candy Jam hashtag on Twitter, is an inventive romp called Candy Candy Candy. We've reached troll level three, apparently.
RULES: MAKE A GAME INVOLVING CANDIES CONSIDER USING THE WORD "CANDY" SEVERAL TIMES, ALSO "SCROLL", "MEMORY", "SAGA", "APPLE" AND "EDGE" MIGHT GIVE BONUS POINTS
The good news, however, is that even the lawyers think this is silly.
IP lawyer Martin Schwimmer tells Gamezebo that the fact "candy" is such a ubiquitous term will make it hard for much to legally stick.And yet many people may simply change the names of their games to avoid trouble, or else find themselves in a court of law having to defend the name of their game including a word that's about as common as it gets. Yay, trademark!
"Someone can't plausibly claim that they came up with the term TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES on their own", he says. "An incredibly unique trademark like that is somewhat easy to protect. Suggestive marks are protectable, but the problem is that third parties can claim that they thought up their mark on their own."
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Filed Under: candy, candy candy candy, candy crush, candy jam, trademark
Companies: king.com
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Still, the sound effects and the song from the game are so creepy I picture the developers with a mix of candy van and pedobear.
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Re:
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what about this name?
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Ever notice that anomalies never end? So long as are lawyers...
Futility of results doesn't necessarily mean proportionate income.
Masnicking: daily spurts of short and trivial traffic-generating items.
02:12:12[c-145-3]
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Re: Ever notice that anomalies never end? So long as are lawyers...
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Re: Re: Ever notice that anomalies never end? So long as are lawyers...
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Re: Ever notice that anomalies never end? So long as are lawyers...
You've been here for 16 years and still get the basic facts of any posted argument wrong? I think that says a lot more about you than anyone else.
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Re: Ever notice that anomalies never end? So long as are lawyers...
So... I am sorry, I am at a loss to your point.
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Re: Ever notice that anomalies never end? So long as are lawyers...
Very true and I'm impressed since its a great self reflection on your part..
Why?
Because your an anomaly that keeps going and going and going with all the provable bogus crap and never learns!
Kudos to you for taking the first step towards intelligent discourse
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Re: Ever notice that anomalies never end? So long as are lawyers...
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Re:
There seems to be a conflict if Hasbro decided to market "Candy Land" in just about any way on electronic media and particularly if they wanted to market electronic equipment or clothing by slapping "Candy Land" on the device or item. If Hasbro takes notice, I don't see how this service mark can survive the 30-day opposition period. Since it is likely there will be an, Adam Sandler, movie based on Candy Land, I am sure that Hasbro will not ignore this.
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My newest game, "Memory of the Edge Candy Apple Scrolls Saga"
It's about a world where Candy, Apples, Scrolls, Edges, Memory, and Saga's have all disappeared, thanks to the six evil trolls who dress like a patent lawyer, and sleep on big piles of money under bridges.
Oh and thanks to the evil troll of memory, no one can remember anything, because otherwise they'd have to pay the evil troll of memory royalties they can't afford. And the only food available is Candy and Apple's, but hardly anyone can afford to eat them, because they'd owe the evil trolls of Candy and Apple's big royalties if they did eat.
In order to get to the evil trolls dressed like patent lawyers you need to somehow make lots of money to pay the the many tolls set up by the evil trolls.
Eventually you'll come to one of the evil trolls. But no matter how hard you try to kill one of the evil troll's dressed like a patent lawyer, the troll will summon the evil judge! The evil judge will rule that you have to pay the evil troll all of your money for infringing on the troll's monopolies, and will steal all of your weapons and armor and give them to the evil troll to help pay your debts.
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Forget "candy"
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http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/23/5339800/indie-developer-accuses-king-of-double-standa rd-alleges-game-was
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Dandy krush
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Wrong attack vector
In reference to where strippers are often found, and because this will be the best game ever, I will name my company "BarKing".
As few people would confuse strippers with sugar-based confections, there is little cause for a trademark complaint.
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Olympic Monster Apple Candy goes Prenda
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@
Maybe also the "&" too.
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Blame the lawyers
Again, though, the blame should be laid at the feet of the lawyers who take cases like this. Even if the company executives think this is a good idea, don't the trademark lawyers know this won't work? Do the lawyers simply take the money without advising the client about the law?
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Re: Blame the lawyers
Lawyers are salesmen.
If you went to staples to buy a computer, and the salesman started telling you about how bad Windows is, even though that is what you have your heart set on, do you change your mind or look for another salesman or another shop to get what you want?
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Game Name - please someone run with it...
Slightly contrived name but you get...
CanDy
Crush
Apple
sAga
with only 4 wasted characters.
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sudhir
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Game
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