71–80 of 94 posts
Lawyer here. I once received a C&D letter for my business, vblood.com, a vampire themed energy drink from a competitor claiming they owned the TM rights to "blood" for beverages. That was a little different they filed the TM in the wrong category and I claimed defense of "descriptive use" how else would a blood themed beverage be described? However, the Candy Crush Saga creators are even further behind the 8-ball on…
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Funny enough, iPhone was trademarked in Brazil way back in 2000. Last year a judge basically yanked that trademark away and gave it to Apple because Apple is "world renowned" and thus deserved it more. [1] I guess trademark ownership is rather nebulous after all. http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/25/4770180/apple-wins-iphone-...
'ios' already existed as an operating system waaay before the iphone was a glint in Jobs' eye. Cisco network equipment runs ios.
Lawyer here. I once received a C&D letter for my business, vblood.com, a vampire themed energy drink from a competitor claiming they owned the TM rights to "blood" for beverages. That was a little different they filed the TM in the wrong category and I claimed defense of "descriptive use" how else would a blood themed beverage be described? However, the Candy Crush Saga creators are even further behind the 8-ball on…
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Isn't Candy Crush just a rip off of Bejeweled though?
After playing a number of King games recently, they are all 'reimaginings' of old classics. Candy Crush is a little more original in terms of additional difficulties, but some of them are basically lifted wholesale. The originality from King is the polish and the art, not the gameplay.
How are the games by PopCap not polished? It irritates me even more that King copies TWO games from the same company... They truly are the new Zynga.
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Isn't Candy Crush just a rip off of Bejeweled though?
It's very similar, though there are some significant gameplay differences. But from a visual perspective, compare Bejeweled[0] and Candy Crush[1], then look at Action Candy Swap HD Pro[2]. [0]: http://appshopper.com/games/bejeweled [1]: http://appshopper.com/games/candy-crush-saga-%C2%AE [2]: http://appshopper.com/games/action-candy-swap-hd-pro
IP lawyer here: No, they haven't trademarked it. They've applied for one. It's been approved for publication in the official gazette. It is now on step 11 of http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/process/ This means anyone who wants to object now has 30 days to object to the mark. You can imagine they will, given how broadly they claim this mark (plus the examiner should have objected) So basically, rather than complain an…
That sounds like a monumentally stupid thing to do... wouldn't the sensible thing be to keep as quiet as possible about it exactly during this step?
I hope Crush [0] sues them for trademark infringement and gives them a taste of their own medicine. [0] http://www.crushsoda.com/
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That third link is incredible; they've made a cottage industry out of match-3 clones. Not only Action Candy Swap , but Action Candy Shift , Action Jewel Matching , and Amazing Fruit Shift -- all of which seem to be clones of the same game with different sprites and verbiage.
I imagine the business model is the repackage the same thing under as many search term combinations as they can think that people would try to find a game like this. In food terms, like a restaurant advertising the same thing as, "BBQ," "Smoked Meat," "Southern Grill Food," "St. Louis Pork," "Tailgate Plate," etc. It's just pushing SEO into the actual name of the game.
I agree that that's likely the main idea, but there's real value in providing different themes. I like jewels more than I like candy art.
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Which of course they stole from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instamatic
Funny enough, iPhone was trademarked in Brazil way back in 2000. Last year a judge basically yanked that trademark away and gave it to Apple because Apple is "world renowned" and thus deserved it more. [1] I guess trademark ownership is rather nebulous after all. http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/25/4770180/apple-wins-iphone-...
Now, if I've been selling a product under the name "iPhone" for 13 years and I have to change the name because someone else in another country managed to release a competing product of the same name and become more famous than me... that's pretty harsh. Off the top of my head, two obvious approaches come to mind --
1. A "use it or lose it" regime, where the Brazilian guy with the iPhone trademark keeps it as long as he's actually doing business under it (it could well be that you can't maintain a trademark without using it anyway; I don't know much about trademark law).
2. The Brazilian iPhone guy should have been absurdly over-vigilant about potentially infringing marks, just like we all complain about major companies doing. He needed to keep Apple's iPhone out of Brazil entirely (or force them to change its name in the Brazilian market).
Also, following your link, two things jump out at me:
- Though the trademark was first requested in 2000, and it says the companies have been fighting over it for 6 years, it also says the Brazilian "iphone" went on sale last year. That looks a little more like bad faith.
- It looks like the judge didn't take the trademark away -- he said they'd have to share (not great, but not as bad as suddenly losing the name of your product).
Funny. Brian Hook developed a game 12 years ago called Candy Cruncher with nearly identical naming, visuals and gameplay: http://www.pyrogon.com/games/candycruncher/ Edit: He just said he successfully filed for the Candy Cruncher trademark in 2002. http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn78164603&docId...
Doesn't matter who's first. But who's got the first patent. He could get sued.