Candy Crush Saga developer King recently trademarked the word “CANDY”. No, seriously. It trademarked the word and talked about pursuing clones that were infringing on the success of its multi-million dollar puzzle game which is available for iOS and Android.
In conversation with Games Industry International, a spokesperson for the studio assuaged concerns over the trademark. “We have trademarked the word ‘CANDY’ in the EU, as our IP is constantly being infringed and we have to enforce our rights and to protect our players from confusion. We don’t enforce against all uses of CANDY – some are legitimate and of course, we would not ask App developers who use the term legitimately to stop doing so.” So if you’ve recently decided to create a first person shooter that has the word “Candy” in it, you’re safe.
As for instances where the developer wants to enforce its copyright, the spokesperson stated that, “The particular App in this instance was called ‘Candy Casino Slots – Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land’, but its icon in the App store just says ‘Candy Slots’, focusing heavily on our trademark. As well as infringing our and other developer’s IP, use of keywords like this as an App name is also a clear breach of Apple’s terms of use.
“We believe this App name was a a calculated attempt to use other companies’ IP to enhance its own games, through means such as search rankings.”
This sounds like a case of “best possible intentions” and could possibly go wrong at some point. Then again, maybe it couldn’t. What are your thoughts on the same? Let us know below.