I saw that the other day, it's pretty fantastic. Trademarking "Candy" and "Saga" is pretty absurd. Trademarking "Candy Crush Saga" is perfectly reasonable. We'd also accept "Candy Crush".
I can understand 'Saga' because their grand plan is to have 25 x-saga games (like Zynga did with -ville). If they do that and other people start making similar facebook games called x-saga then that would be unfair to King. I don't know if they have any other recourse in that instance, but they should be able to protect their brand.
Most games tell a story of some kind, and sagas are a type of story. The idea that one company gets a lock on that word is ludicrous. "A first-person fantasy-based RPG called 'Dragon Saga'? Sorry, you can't have it because a tile-matching game has trademarked the word 'saga'".
It's a bit like being able to trademark the term 'movie' - should the makers of 'Scary Movie' be able to stop other films from having 'movie' in the title?
I watched my son playing Candy Crush for a few minutes and I don't see even a hint of a saga in that game. Can you get a patent on the process of misusing English words to back up your trademark?
The worst part is one of the main definitions of saga is "long story of heroic achievement, esp. a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic." Banner Saga is pretty much the perfect fit.
It's different from Zynga's "-ville", because Zynga creates new words that have never (or very rarely) been used. It's different from Apple's i-Things as well for the same reason. Both of those companies made prudent decisions about their brand trademarks by not treading on anyone else.
The law should not allow companies to own common English words in perpetuity. If you want to make your brand a common English word, you should accept the fact that other people get to use it.
I doubt King will win any lawsuits against others who use the words.
> Both of those companies made prudent decisions about their brand trademarks by not treading on anyone else.
Actually Apple ran into some trouble with, say, there already being software called IOS before any of the iThings existed. They've been to court over it a few times.
There's a different takeaway here. There are lots of other companies that are using the i- prefix for their products and yet Apple continues to thrive.
Really? So, because a company wants to use the word "saga" in a line of products, they now own the word "saga"? Really?! Man, I totally should have grabbed the word "trilogy" last year before I wrote my last three apps.
They chose "Saga" knowing that it had a long history of use in a great many games that are very well known to gamers, so that's something they should have to live with. Stealing (i.e. actually depriving others of) the use of parts of language is not inherently reasonable to me.
Also, what ever happened to trademarks? I thought they were defined as adjectives and 'Saga' is clearly a noun in every use I've seen....
A trademark is any distinguishing mark that indicates a product comes from you. The whole idea ("trade mark") is that it gives you a way to let people know which products are yours and which are competitors / unrelated / what have you, or, viewed from the mirror perspective, to let customers in the market know that they're buying what they think they're buying. That's why a central test of trademark violation is whether a customer would be likely to be confused between two marks.
They can be anything at all, such as entire phrases ("made from the best stuff on earth"), symbols (like the Apple apple), or particular colors, like the distinctive blue that Mauna Loa uses in their macadamia nut packaging (or the distinctive blue that Tiffany's uses in theirs!).
Yeah, but they're supposed to be used as an identifier and the fact that they don't (and haven't, to my knoweldge) ever used it as an adjective only underscores the fact that it does nothing whatsoever to distinguish them.
While I could see Candy X Saga being marginally distinctive, I associate 'Candy' and 'Saga' very strongly with completely different makers and I believe that I am by no means alone. For me, 'Candy Land' comes first for 'Candy' and 'Saga' goes to the whole 'SaGa' RPG series.
Also, I don't like word thieves trying to steal language out from under us. Here, the usage of 'thief' being justified by the fact that they are attempting to deprive us of the use of the word through dodgy legal practices.
No. I'm pointing out how, in spite of that, I believe this mark as applied for is not distinctive in the least and to me creates confusion with the marks of people who used them in commerce first.
A Trademark is only granted for a narrow field of use. So the headline assertion that King want to monopilize the word "Candy" is wide of the mark. As thaumasiotes states, the purpose is to protect consumers by rogue companies passing off their products in an attempt to deceive. All trademark applications are inspected before grant, that inspection being focussed on what is right for the average consumer, not for the company making the application, nor its competitors. In this case, imho, the trademark is legitimate. A quick scan of many of the objectioners shows that they are clearly aiming to deceive the average consumer.
For purposes of a trademark, actually, yes. From Apple's own site [1], "Trademarks are adjectives, and should not be made into verbs or made plural or possessive." In addition, Apple specifies a list of suggested generic terms for each trademark. Under Guidelines for Using Apple Trademarks and Copyrights, some concrete examples are given [2]: "Correct: I bought two Macintosh computers." but "Not Correct: I bought two Macintoshes."
- Apple says this because it doesn't want its trademarks to become common words ineligible for trademark protection (like what happened to xerox and kleenex). But it can't stop people from referring to things however they please; this is nothing more than a statement of how Apple wishes the world would work.
- If I say "I bought two Apple computers", Apple is still a noun, not an adjective.
Yes, if you post "I bought two Macintoshes today" to your blog or write it in a commercial article or anything of the kind, Apple has no authority to prevent that (and a trademark likewise does not apply to such behavior). Their only authority is to stop you from using their mark on your unaffiliated products.
The only problem with that is Saga is a common word in video game titles -ville not so much. If you swing by a game related site like http://www.gamefaqs.com/ and search for saga it will turn up more than a couple hundred games with saga in the title(including more than one game titled "Saga")
Then they patent Candy xxx saga. And begin pumping Candy Crush Saga, Candy Punch Saga, Candy Throw Saga, Candy Jump Saga. But both candy and saga should be in the game title.
The last line in the above link reads "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@king.com I look forward to hearing from you."
So if any of you want to drop King a line, go for it. Call them out on their BS.
This is what happens when there's no downside (other than cost) to trademarking something. It doesn't hurt king to try, and the worst that happens is they don't get the trademark approved.
But when/if it does succeed, they are able to prevent anyone else from riding on the tail of their heavy marketing spend.
I don't like what they are doing, but they are just trying to maximize their profit, and also prevent their competition from free-riding off their marketing.
The post doesn't say that. The effects of getting a trademark on 'Saga' are both to prevent others from riding on their tail (while diluting the effect of their marketing) _and_ to prevent other products that want to use the word Saga for reasons unrelated to Candy Crush Saga. I imagine they only really care about the former, but the latter would happen anyway.
I wish a large, well-behaved, games company would produce a game (totally original, good, but simple), posing as an independent developer, publish it, wait for King/Zynga to clone it, then sue their asses off. Seems to me like they're only getting away with this because they can bully the small guys.
The problem is that game mechanics aren't really copyrightable. Pac-Avoid was likely removed for its obvious trademark infringement (oh, the irony) but you can get away with some pretty blatant ripping off by changing all the copyrightable assets.
The douchebag attorneys at the USPTO need some explanation for this madness. Given that King.com has successfully registered the "Candy" in Europe, doesn't mean it should be overlooked in America too. How can anyone actually trademark such an everyday word??
It's all fun and games till someone loses a lawsuit.
The Tetris Company LLC has for years claimed copyright and trademark rights over all falling-tetromino games and sending out C&D letters to independent developers. The developers laughed it off, until TTC vs. Xio, in which a district court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff.
By doing something like this the developers are risking serious lawsuits, and the invalidity of the "candy" trademark really can't be established except in a courtroom. And I think most of the smaller devs will settle way before then.
TTC vs Xio involved a direct clone. The judge ruled in his ruling that the game rules and gameplay were not copyrightable. Indeed, the judge noted that games like Dr. Mario (a tetris-like) would not have violated TTC's copyright.
Xio's clone went beyond just rules and gameplay--it copied the dimensions, colors, and various art assets. Comparing screenshots of Tetris and Xio's clone, it would have been very difficult for most people, even those familiar with Tetris, to identify which was the original.
Xio’s game didn’t copy any art assets from anywhere, as I can tell you, since I made all the art for it. [Mostly over one weekend, as a volunteer favor to the developers.]
The colors were not copied from anywhere, they were picked, by me, with no reference to any existing art, using a careful process designed to maximize distinguishability. To be specific, I decided that the colors should all be clearly separated in CIELAB lightness and hue, and then chose which lightness to match to which hue based on the gamut of then-current iPhones.
The result is a bunch of “bright” colors. But lots of games want bright colors, because they are the most easily distinguishable, and having easily distinguishable colors makes a game easier to play.
As for the appearance of the bricks, I cooked up a dozen or so possibilities in Photoshop, and let the rest of the team decide which to use. Again, created in a few various styles, but not with any reference to any previous game.
Just look at the screenshots of Xio's clone and Tetris. They are almost identical. Now compare Tetris with tetris-likes such as Dr. Mario, and the difference is immediately apparent.
Copying assets doesn't just mean verbatim copy-and-paste. It includes recreating other assets such that they are virtually identical to the source material, as the art assets you apparently created were.
IANAL, but these are two different issues. We are discussing a trademark, not a mechanic. TTC never got any of their cases regarding trademark, precisely because no one called it tetris (which is not even a real word). King hasn't copyrighted match-3, and probably won't ever be able to (what with prior art with at least Bejeweled, and I'm sure others before that)
Even aside from all that, I think #candyjam is protected under fair use. The intent is very obviously parody.
In fact, it'll probably end up with someone participating in the jam that has a sizable legal team, and they could probably string up a class-action lawsuit for everyone in the jam, which would probably amount to huge settlement costs if King tried to pay their way out of court. Lose-lose situation for them; they shell out massive amounts or lose their trademark for not protecting it.
Thought experiment: What would happen if Apple allowed all these infringing games to stay in the appstore? They'd get a fine? Get sued? What if they then CONTINUED to let the ganes stay. Making a stand on trademarking... I mean, Apple can pay any fine thrown at them and the governemt can't really close them down... Can they? "Yo Cook, shut it down."
How does a state handle companies richer than some countries?
I think this is brilliant, but is slamming Apple's iOS approval process with *candy titles really the best way? Isn't there are risk that you are flooding it and causing delays for (sorry for the phrasing) legitimate developers in getting their apps approved?
Hate to cast a negative on this, as it DOES nicely illustrate the ridiculousness of the situation!
Those IP laws are the same things that underpin the GPL and other Open Source licenses.
Granted, trademarks can sometimes be silly, copyright terms far too long and software patents ridiculous but at heart they do provide some very strong value.
Uhhh, I have an Puyopuyo clone in the pipeline which I wanted to release soon (denied because of jagged graphics). This calls for CandyCandy, amirite?!?
