Perhaps a legal defense could be funded through something like KickStarter?
CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#22It would be interesting if Apple would step in here. They could, given their obscenely vague appstore "rules", simply delete the CandyCrush Saga game out of the store as it is a copy of an existing game. That would force King to be a bit more creative in their copying in the future. That said, "protecting" games has been a problem, almost literally forever. On the one hand you want folks to benefit from there work, o…
I'm the author of a popular app that has been copied by many many other developers. Despite many complaints to try and limit the copy-cats, Apple does nothing and leaves the issue up to the developers to sort out between themselves for the most part and it's absolutely frustrating.
Watching an app be successful and then watching the copy-cats swoop in to feed on your success as Apple (or Google) do nothing is very difficult to deal with.
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#23Seriously, why isn't this guy able to win this and gain monetary damages?
I'm guessing the cost of actually doing this is more than he has. And even if he wins, I'm sure King.com will spend months or years trying to appeal the ruling which will cost him more money.
...is this the kind of battle the EFF fights?
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing the cost of actually doing this is more than he has. And even if he wins, I'm sure King.com will spend months or years trying to appeal the ruling which will cost him more money.
Well if the case is strong enough, the US at least you don't need money, you tell the lawyers they can keep the the money all you want is to establish your right to the trademark. Then they go off and bring this guy down, make their money, and you get the satisfaction of knowing that your trademark is safe.
...unless the law is clear, and he's destined to lose. Then no lawyer will touch it on the terms you describe.
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#25That's pretty dirty. If you have no legitimate claim to a trademark, just buy an existing slightly related trademark and use that!
I am surprised that this would pass in court as being a legitimate means of existing.
It doesn't have to pass in court as long as you have more money than your opponent. You just keep going until they run out of money.
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#26It would be interesting if Apple would step in here. They could, given their obscenely vague appstore "rules", simply delete the CandyCrush Saga game out of the store as it is a copy of an existing game. That would force King to be a bit more creative in their copying in the future. That said, "protecting" games has been a problem, almost literally forever. On the one hand you want folks to benefit from there work, o…
I'm the author of a popular app that has been copied by many many other developers. Despite many complaints to try and limit the copy-cats, Apple does nothing and leaves the issue up to the developers to sort out between themselves for the most part and it's absolutely frustrating. Watching an app be successful and then watching the copy-cats swoop in to feed on your success as Apple (or Google) do nothing is very di…
Welcome to capitalism. If you were a web app, or a brick and mortar store, there would be no Apple or Google for you to appeal to. Only the courts, which you have anyway, but which have no sway over developers in China, etc.
Honestly I can't believe you (and other) developers are surprised when this happens.
My company's web site was copy and pasted wholesale by a competitor, and we had to threaten legal action against them in order to get them to replace it. (Probably with someone else's.)
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#27Damn copyright trolls. It's a shame this can't be more known.
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#28It seems to me that making games for the iTunes App Store has become a "red ocean strategy." It's fiercely competitive, and there are now some monster sharks (e.g. King, Zynga). I don't like the sharks, but hey, they're sharks: they're doing what sharks do.
Time to look for some blue ocean, I guess.
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#29It seems to me that making games for the iTunes App Store has become a "red ocean strategy." It's fiercely competitive, and there are now some monster sharks (e.g. King, Zynga). I don't like the sharks, but hey, they're sharks: they're doing what sharks do. Time to look for some blue ocean, I guess.
It's very risky for your business to depend entirely on the closed platform of another business. It really shouldn't be surprising that 'sharks' are ripping off smaller developers in these marketplaces. They've proven to be better adapted to the rules of the game.
Re: CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
#30This sort of thing is happening increasingly frequently. I really like the idea of AskPatents ( http://patents.stackexchange.com ).
It seems to me that as developers we need a similar site where people can start objecting to overly broad trademarks, especially single word ones which are targeted at web service and application name related trademark classes.
There are probably much fewer trademarks issued that patents, and they are easily searchable online, eg the UK Trademark Journal is at http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-tmj/tm-journals/2014-006/index.html .
A trademark is also much easier to object to than a patent ( http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-other/t-object/t-afterpub/t... ).
It would be a great weekend project for someone to create a web app which does some of this. You could even charge businesses a fee to monitor words that may affect their businesses.