Candy Crush creator abandons 'candy' trademark efforts

http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/25/5446504/candy-crush-creator-abandons-candy-trademark-efforts

by bpierre • 12 years ago

147 43 12 years ago

polygon.com

intull• 12 years ago

Phew! There's no "king" for "candy" now.

gr3yh472• 12 years ago

(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)

YYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

dblacc• 12 years ago

Will be interesting to see their actions in Europe from now.

Peroni• 12 years ago

This does not affect our E.U. trademark for Candy and we continue to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP.

So only half the battle won then.

Bahamut• 12 years ago

Yep, so it's still crappy.

JNRowe2• 12 years ago

It feels weird replying like this to someone in the UK(according to your profile), but...

Since the original story broke I've been thinking that I would have granted the Candy trademark, but perhaps I'm being too short sighted.

To my British ear candy isn't a common word at all. I say this understanding that the word is common in American English(candy store, candy bar, etc).

The only candy usage examples I can think of are the non-hyphenated Candyfloss(Cotton Candy to Americans), and the even weaker related use as a process as in "candied fruit".

Please point out that I'm wrong. It has been niggling me for a couple of weeks now, and I suspect I must just be looking at this the wrong way.

Edit: Remembered Candyfloss → Cotton Candy the moment I hit send.

Nursie• 12 years ago

Candy is indeed uncommon here, but not unheard of. You'll find it on confectionary packaging to describe the contents. There's also a chain of stores in London (elsewhere now?) called Cyber Candy that sell exotic (OK so mostly american) candy.

So it is in some use, but not that common.

Personally I object to anyone that tries to trademark a single word of our shared language. They shouldn't be able to fence bits off like that, they should have to make up their own word if they want it trademarked.

showdead• 12 years ago

This is one of the points where British English and American English diverge. Candy in the US is the generic word with the identical meaning as what in the UK is just called "sweets". Same thing as trousers / pants, although not quite as amusing.

pbhjpbhj• 12 years ago

To my British ear candy isn't a common word at all. //

It's pretty common but not to refer to hard boiled or jelly sweets. It has been co-opted, by analogy with sweets, to refer to a particular colour palette - as such is often used when referencing that (eg in cosmetics); you'll probably recall the candy-coloured iMacs.

It's not however commonality in general parlance that is the relevant measure - candy is and has been used in video games for a while to refer to brightly coloured shapes. King's use (since 2012) isn't original and so isn't distinctive enough to indicate the origin of computing products [and others in the relevant TM classification areas] bearing the title "Candy" is King.com, Ltd..

If it were on commonality in street parlance then candy would be pretty common among younger generations that are more influenced by USA culture.

Saga? They might as well apply for "game" as an RTM.

SimHacker• 12 years ago

If not popular names like Candy and Crystal, then what do strippers in the UK call themselves?

zacinbusiness2• 12 years ago

I wonder if their IP lawyers still got paid.

thesis• 12 years ago

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not.... but of course they did.

DannyBee• 12 years ago

The amount they got paid for this was probably not worth the energy they put into it.

(as a side, i'd love to see engineers account for their time in 5 minute increments before complaining about lawyer billing practices. I would be surprised if it wasn't the case that on a salary / number-of-hours-really-worked-per-year, most IP lawyers make a lot less than most engineers)

zacinbusiness2• 12 years ago

It depends on my day and how hard I'm working as to how much I get paid per hour. But then I've never worried too much about guiding wealth, so long as my family is well provided for and happy. Maybe that's why I'm not wealthy :-)

jbeja• 12 years ago

Thanks god!.

chrisbennet2• 12 years ago

In case anyone missed it, Candy Crush is a copy someone else's game in the first place. They tried to buy and when that didn't work out, they cloned it. http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/24/candy-crush-maker-accused-of-s...

deletes• 12 years ago

That is not true. Did you read your link?

gr3yh472• 12 years ago

he used a poor link for it, but that doesn't make it untrue - it is indeed true, their game is a blatant copy of candy swipe

http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/13/candy-crush-saga-makers-to-sue...

talmand3• 12 years ago

Mixed up the apps a bit, there is a strong accusation of Candy Crush being a clone of another game named Candy Swipe. In that case they are trying strong arm the guy out of the way despite his strong claims. Just yet more crappy behavior from a modern day bully.

benched• 12 years ago

Candy Crush is essentially a re-skin of Bejeweled with level mechanics. Yes, I have played both.

dogweather3• 12 years ago

Huh? The link isn't about Candy Crush.

chrisbennet2• 12 years ago

Sorry folks, I was mistaken. It wasn't Candy Crush, it was a different game. King deliberately copied "Scamperghost" with their "Pac-Avoid" game.

Simp• 12 years ago

Too bad they still won the battle for the 'saga' trademark.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/01/23/candy-crush-...

kej• 12 years ago

Did they actually win that? The USPTO shows an active trademark record for The Banner Saga and I couldn't find a generic "saga" mark for King.com, but I don't really know enough about the system to be sure of what I'm seeing.

ripter• 12 years ago

I don't understand why people got so mad at King for this. People complained at all the Flappy Bird clones. That is exactly why King was trying to protect the candy trademark. King was just doing that the law requires them to do in order to protect their trademark and prevent thousands of clones trying to cash in on the candy trademark.

rambojohnson• 12 years ago

there's a big difference between cloning the likeness of an entire game vs. having a game that bares no resemblance to another game other than the name of it...

chadillac• 12 years ago

My new game "Cut the Flappy Candy Saga-ville" will be coming to the market soon... it's just a calculator with banner ads.

fennecfoxen• 12 years ago

You mean like "All Candy Casino Slots – Jewel Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land"?

ooh, looks like they replaced 'candy' with 'sugar': https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/all-sugar-casino-slots-jewel...

tedajax• 12 years ago

Trademark isn't about people making clones of your game. In this case Trademark is about people confusing the title of your game with another game because they use the same name.

Trademarking "Candy Crush Saga" makes sense because that's the full name of the game and is not a common word or phrase.

Trademarking "Candy" is absurd. This means any game that has the world candy in it is suddenly subject to litigation by King. Candy is a common word, and I could have a game called Unicorn Candy Attack and clearly that's not going to cause confusion with Candy Crush Saga.

schnevets2• 12 years ago

Who is complaining about the Flappy Bird clones? If the creator hadn't pulled the app, he still would have been printing out money for the foreseeable future, so I doubt he's enraged about people profiting from the idea. Out of those thousands of clones, the new winner won't be the app that carbon copies Flappy Bird most effectively, it's going to be an app that builds on the idea. If King.com, with their newfound millions, can't build a superior product to some poser "Sweets Smash Story", then they don't deserve to stay on top of the App Charts.

Crito• 12 years ago

As far as I have seen, the only people who have complained about flappy clones have actually just complained that flappy clones are 'trending', not that clones are made. In other words, they are just annoyed by being bombarded by clone after clone.

devindotcom• 12 years ago

They abandoned it in the US because they purchased the rights to the "Candy Crusher" trademark — a game which came out before Candy Swipe and protects King against trademark attacks from that front. They are still pursuing "Candy" in the EU.

kaa2102• 12 years ago

Sounds like a win for the good guys.

bigtunacan• 12 years ago

It's just unbelievable King is able to get trademarks through on this garbage.

Square's ongoing SaGa series has been around since the late 80's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaGa_%28series%29

Then there was Panzer Dragoon Saga, Lego Star Wars : The Complete Saga. Surely there are more.

Ridiculous

rachellaw• 12 years ago

Didn't they try to trademark 'saga' at some point too? Complaining that Viking Saga was a copy of their game? This whole trademark of common English terms is going to ruin the industry

Candy Crush creator abandons 'candy' trademark efforts

Related Stories