By: Sharon Urias, Esq.
In the video game world, the past month has seen a storm form surrounding King Digital Entertainment, the makers of the popular game Candy Crush.
The turbulent behavior is in relation to their intentions to trademark the words “Candy” and “Saga.” After filing their application, they wasted no time in going after other video game companies who were using the same word(s) in their games’ titles.
It didn’t take long for the accusations of patent “trolling” to come out, but King Digital released a statement that they were merely trying to protect their brand name for the upcoming future.
Since then, however, it appears that King Digital has backtracked on their original intentions slightly, and has removed their application to trademark the word “Candy.”
According to a statement released by King: “King has withdrawn its trademark application for Candy in the U.S., which we applied for in February 2013 before we acquired the early rights to Candy Crusher. Each market that King operates in is different with regard to IP. We feel that having the rights to Candy Crusher is the best option for protecting Candy Crush in the U.S. market. This does not affect our E.U. trademark for Candy and we continue to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP.”
Even though King abandoned their quest, their earlier aggressive actions have created quite a bit of backlash in the gaming community. After they attempted to block the trademark registration of indie game “The Banner Saga,” certain members of the gaming community created The Candy Jam, a site that specifically requested other developers create new games with the words “Candy” and “Saga” in the title.
The effects that all this will have on King’s IPO, currently valued at $500 million, are unknown, but this whole issue helps to outline how murky the world of trademark litigation can be.
