Slashdot Mirror
Candy Crush Maker King.com Has Trademarked 'Candy' For Games
An anonymous reader writes ""King.com, owners of Candy Crush, have received a U.S. trademark on the use of the word 'candy' in games and clothing. Forbes thinks it is overly broad. 'One would think Hasbro, the maker of that venerable children's board game (which does have video game versions) Candy Land, would already have this trademark sewed up.'" According to an update on the story, the company also has a EU trademark on the same term, but (however much comfort this is) is enforcing its claims only selectively, as against a game called All Candy Casino Slots – Jewel Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land.
One can always release Confection Made With Sugar And Often Flavoring And Filling Crush!
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
That's a candy assed move. Government, please stop giving exclusive use of language to corporations. Some of us still use it for communication.
" U.S. trademark on the use of the word 'candy' in games and clothing."
Yet another example of how broken the whole trademark/copyright/patent system is...
If only I had spare time on my hands. I'd put out a game entitled Can Dee Crush? Just to get under their skin. Oh, and let's not forget the t-shirts, too...
The issue isn't that Hasbro should have already trademarked "candy", it's that "candy" shouldn't be able to be trademarked at all. It's a common freakin' word and should be able to be used in game titles and clothing w/o licensing.
Burning copycat apps who are ripping off your game is a different issue, but this shouldn't be the solution.
How can you copyright the word 'Candy' for trademark?
Microsoft can only trademark "Windows" in their specific context, and clothing targeted towards 'Candy ravers' has been around a long time. Are you really claiming nobody can make a candy themed game??
This is completely ridiculous, and whoever granted this must have been drunk, stupid, or paid off.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They don't want anyone to benefit from anything in their Bejeweled game.
All Candy Casino Slots – Jewel Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land: Glorious Slots For Make Benefit Kazakhstan III: The Search For Curly's Gold!
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Not to mention Candy Crank
May I copyright the F*** word for cursing and yelling?
are not sweet. They are not even biter. They are tasteless.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
massturds of deception continue to reign DOWn upon US
I hope Candystand (1997) smacks them down a bit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candystand
The owners of CandyLand should sue them out of existence.
Confectionery Disaggregation.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The full name is Masquerade: The Candification: All Candy Casino Slots – Jewel Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land: Candy For All: The Candychokers...
IV
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I plan to trademark the word "faggots" in the context of a gaming company, and charge a dime for each use in public forums. I'll make millions off discussions regarding Ubisoft, EA's working environment and King's IP strategies.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
My concern with this kind of case has always been the "fencing off" of the "open range" of ideas, art, and concepts. In other words, okay, so "candy" in games is now trademarked. Maybe next is "marble" or "bucks" or "battle" or something. People want to look to one place or another to develop something new and interesting, but hey, you have to pay rent to use the land...err...the idea. Given that ideas are generally derived from a long process of exposure to different cultural experiences and concepts (the "candy man" concept has been around for a long time -- look at the original Willie Wonka and the candyman song), it's not a whole lot different from saying that they're going to stake their claim to one part or another of our shared cultural experiences. I think this is what is more offensive than anything else about this kind of move and why it angers people so much, myself included.
but (however much comfort this is) is enforcing its claims only selectively
Doesn't that mean that it's not a valid trademark? I thought that trademarks had to be defended, always, or they lost their status.
Also, by their logic, I'm hereby trademarking the word "Hello", and that means that the makers of Hello Kitty must pay me approximately eleventy-billion dollars.
I am officially gone from
You've got money, we've got rubber stamps
U.S. trademark on the use of the word 'candy' in games and clothing.
There's already people using this trademark without approval!
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Google: candy games -crush
Set date filter: 01/01/2011 - 12/31/2011 (Candy Crush was released on Facebook 04/12/2012)
I mean really? Could thousands of online and mobile games with the word "candy" in them, existing years, even decades before King Games released Candy Crush, suddenly be in violation of a newly registered trademark?
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
This CEO is going to have fun trying to keep on breathing at the bottom of a pile of every candy company lawyer in the country.
I'm going to call it 'Monster Candy'. I don't see any potential legal issues.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
King doesn't have a US trademark yet. Go to uspto.gov and search for KING.COM LIMITED. The application is currently suspended while they negotiate with Link Tomorrow Co. Ltd, who filed for "CANDY PANG!" in 2012.
only $0.002 a use
United states is a crazy country :s, what is the logic of copyrighting a word that already existed before?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
IBM may be ahead of you there.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ibm-patents-the-patent,11868.html
IANAL but a quick search at uspto.gov turns up a handful of "candy crush" trademarks, all of which trademark "candy crush" and none of which claim just "candy". I'm guessing king.com is enforcing against "candy" videogames based on arguments of market confusion with "candy crush," and wouldn't dare try to claim market confusion against Candyland.
TIL Forbes.com is just another hysteria-mongering blogger.
Dated, but in 2008 the IOC trademarked part of Canada's national anthem.
Never mind "made up words" or such, the national anthem is by its very nature public domain.
http://boingboing.net/2008/09/29/olympics-reach-a-new.html
I'm unfamiliar with the U.S. legal system, but surely the fact that King were not the first people to use the word "Candy" in a computer game title must weaken their claim to it? For example "Candy Crisis" from about 1997.
Hey King.com fuck you. I just uninstalled this game and will never buy or use one or your products again.
So, if I decide to sell candy apples, to I need to pay King and Apple?
Thank you for the registration number. It's unbelievable USPTO would allow a trademark 1) on a dictionary word, 2) on such a broad base of categories, 3) when other products already use the word. But it's true.
I don't know how these things work, but I thought that the fact that a ton of other games already use this should void this trademark... you know, Pokemon's rare candy and whatnot...
No, not the idiots who trademarked "candy", the idiots who let them trademark candy.
As in, sue the people in the trademark office that approved an obviously flawed trademark, and force them to make restitution to the public.
I would tell them to pound sand in the US. They have no U.S. trademark registration for the word mark "CANDY".
The mark "CANDY" was published as application for registration serial number 85/842,584 on January 15, 2014. Interested parties have until February 15, 2014 to file a Notice of Opposition to registration of the mark. king.com's pushing its weight around regarding this mark during the opposition period, when they are particularly vulnerable, is just stupid, IMHO. Any party receiving a "cease and desist" from king.com can file institute an opposition proceeding before the U.S. Trademark Office during this time and get the trademark examiners to consider all the many arguments as to why king.com should not obtain registration for this mark for these goods and services.
*sigh* Here we go again...
Trademarks are not necessarily exclusive, and while registering a trademark will go a long way in a court case, it will not guarantee a win. A trademark is simply what you are known as to consumers. Once upon a time, "Escalator" was a trademark. "Escalator"s became so popular that people began to associate "Escalator" with moving stairways. Since "Escalator" didn't protect it's brand, it slipped into generic usage and they lost their trademark. Now anyone is allowed to sell an "escalator".
This is why we have recently seen such a huge push from Xerox, Kleenex, and Google asking people to stop "xeroxing", "using a kleenex", and "googling". As soon as the usage of the word becomes a verb to the common person, instead of a noun, the trademark is lost. This is why companies will pour millions into branding efforts telling us to "Copy using a Xerox photocopier", "Use Kleenex brand facial tissue", or "Use the Google web search engine".
Additionally, Trademarks can be regional. There was at least one case of Kentucky Fried Chicken not being allowed to call themselves "Kentucky Fried Chicken" in Kentucky. Why? Because there was already a "Kentucky Fried Chicken" in town that people knew about. It didn't matter that some large company had the name also - the small guy was around first and was therefore allowed to keep the trademark in the region people knew them. (They would not have been allowed to open up a new store somewhere else though, as people in that area likely wouldn't have known about them but would know about the chain.)
The government will grant a trademark application to just about anything, as long as it doesn't already exist. It's up to the courts to determine if infringement has happened later on. In the case of something such as the game "Candy Land", which has been around for a long time, they would certainly prevail. (Unless they fail to protect their mark.)
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
The Trademark business is one of the most corrupt imaginable. The 'Law' is constantly simply a reflection of large amounts of money placed into the pockets of judges and politicians. It is truly a reflection of the EVIL side of intellectual property.
In the UK, for instance, Branson pulled the same stunt with the abuse of the word 'Virgin'. Branson was and is well connected, so his 'victory' in court was guaranteed. And the value of such a victory can be explained thusly.
A few years back, Britain's ONLY significant cable company renamed itself 'Virgin' (with permission from Branson, of course). However, the cable company had nothing whatsoever to do with Richard Branson in any business sense- but Branson lent his face to the cable company to con the public into thinking Virgin Cable was part of the 'trendy' Virgin empire. When Branson, disgustingly, 'won' the right to have exclusive use of the word 'Virgin', he literally gained the ability to make significant amounts of money with ZERO effort of investment. The 'ownership' of the word alone gave Branson massive riches.
Clearly, no reasonable person has an issue with a 'group' owning a general 'group' describing trademark- but the key is in the word DESCRIPTION. 'Apple' is NOT a description. 'Virgin' is NOT a description. 'Candy' is NOT a description. These words belong to English speaking people, not corporations, and it should be illegal for anyone to pay-off judges and politicians in order to OWN these words.
However, as the world rolls toward global war, corruption no longer even bothers to try to hide its true face. For god's sake, the US press was crowing about how Saudi Arabia, the most abusive religious dictatorship on the planet, next to Israel, had Iran thrown out of the international meeting on Syria - and that this is a 'good' thing. They don't even attempt to try to look like good guys these days.
Not even a dull-witted 8-year-old would agree that having a successful game called 'Candy Crush' should give them the right to control all games with 'Candy' in their title. The child would point out that such logic literally means the entire language is up for sale. The child would say "what next- one person owns the rights to ANY film with 'pirate' in the title?"
But the people with the money, and hence the power to corrupt, don't care about what is right, logical, moral, or good for greater business. The people with the money would reintroduce Human slavery if they could- because for them it is all about POWER.
"under garments, underpants, underwear"
Well, damn - there goes the whole edible underwear market
"Blank video cassettes"
I guess this includes beta and VHS. Bastards - that was my next start-up incubator idea I was going to pitch to a few VCs next week. *sigh* I wonder if wax cylinders are going to come back any time soon...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So does this mean the maker of Candy Land and My Little Pony is about to give King.com a My Little Pwning?
Burning copycat apps who are ripping off your game is a different issue
That depends. Several years ago, Taito published a video game called Bust-A-Move (Puzzle Bobble in some markets). Should Taito (a Square Enix company) take action against the developers of free software such as Frozen Bubble , which has the same rules?
I thought "candy" would be considered merely descriptive for a video game that depicts pieces of candy as the objects with which the player interacts. For example, in both Yoshi's Cookie and Cookie Clicker, the player interacts with cookies. Unless a merely descriptive term gains a secondary meaning, I don't see how it should be eligible for a trademark.
You're allowed to register a trademark for a term that is arbitrary in the field of use. For example, "Apple" is an existing English word, but it is arbitrary for phonorecords of musical recordings (Apple Corps) or computers (Apple Inc.) because there is nothing about the products themselves that suggests an apple. But if something is merely descriptive, it's much harder to qualify for a trademark. For example, "Candy" would appear to be descriptive for a computer game in which the player interacts with game pieces that depict sweets. The registrant has to show that the mark has gained a secondary meaning in the field of use.
Ooops sorry, 'sweet jam'. Fight trademark trolling - make a game
Why? Because trademarking common names is ridiculous and because it gives us another occasion to make another gamejam.
Rules: Make a game involving candies. Consider using the word "candy" several times, also "scroll", "memory", "saga" and "apple" might give bonus points.
http://thecandyjam.com/
I guess it's time to troll the trolls. Get game making :)
King.com can go f*ck themselves up the candy asss for all I care.
And sue king for infringing
the Kitchen Sink!!
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I think Drokodile Candy is a good name, no?
Adult Swim has several Candy Mountain titles in their game library.
Plausibile deniability for using words covered by excessively broad trademarks: make Gg98r49;9pthl$mk the offical name of your game and have some anonymous third parties google bomb it with the title that you really wanted.
One instance of the use of one word in a game gives them a monopoly on "Candy?" What are the trademark folks smoking? That's Candy-ass.
King.com has the funds to enforce this. Done deal.
Free knock off name to any /. user who wants it. Quick, run and trademark "stuff" quick!
Not only are they trademarking (and actively pursuing against) folks with "Candy" in their game name, but also anybody with "Saga" in their name. Such is the case where they are pursuing a block against the trademark filed for "The Banner Saga", which is a nordic influenced, turn-based strategy, RPG game. See reference articles at:
http://www.escapistmagazine.co...
http://www.rockpapershotgun.co...