Of course they're not going to enforce the name "too strictly"; they know it'd never stand up in court, so they'll only use it to beat up on small-time devs who don't have the resources to fight back.
Candy Crush King went 'too far' when it candy crushed my app – dev
The developer behind the Candy Slots iOS game has said Candy Crush Saga-maker King has gone "too far" with its enforcement of its trademark on the word CANDY. Candy Slots icon and Candy Crush icon The icons of Candy Slots and Candy Crush Slots programmer Benny Hsu was surprised to find an email in his inbox yesterday from …
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Thursday 23rd January 2014 20:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
And for what it's worth, if you don't like 'candy' being used in relation to sweets, it's the French you have a problem with, not the US; the word originated from the French 'sucre candi', whence it became the Middle English 'sugre candi'.
But, I mean, don't let reality get in the way of some America-bashing; God knows nobody else does.
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Wednesday 22nd January 2014 21:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Considering Candy Crush is a direct rip-off of Pop Cap's Bejewelled; which in turn is a more sophisticated copy of something I had on my PDA in 2004-ish they really shouldn't have a leg to stand on.
The system rewards plagiarising, unethical douchbags at the expense of genuine innovation and it REALLY needs to be changed.
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Wednesday 22nd January 2014 22:43 GMT Robert Carnegie
As for another King product -
On Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett we were recently discussing whether the witches depicted in the "Bubble Witch Saga" game are a rip-off of the specific portrayal of three reasonably good witches in Terry Pratchett's comedy fantasy novels [Wyrd Sisters] and so forth.
I haven't played the game, but from the description, the witches don't really do anything. They just stand there looking in their cauldon. And all of them have cats, which Terry Pratchett's witches don't except for one - but the Bubble Witch that resembles Nanny Ogg has a cat that resembles Greebo. I take it that the cats don't do anything either.
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Friday 24th January 2014 14:56 GMT Robert Carnegie
Re: As for another King product -
Mr. Shakespeare's witches are acknowledged, but they are evil, basically uniform, mostly without cats as far as I remember, and originally played by male actors - which also is acknowledged. Their boy player analogues in the play in [Wyrd Sisters] are arrested by mistake, and Sir Terry's witches take their places on stage, with dramatic consequences.
The idea that spooky women may be maiden, mother, or crone and come in threes has precedents, but I considered that His Pratchettude had innovated by teaming up one of each type, and in other ways. But I'm not a lawyer.
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Wednesday 22nd January 2014 22:54 GMT LaeMing
While I wholely disagree with the trademarking of a common word like 'Candy', a game called "All Candy Casino Slots – Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land" is clearly named explicitly to draw hits from searches for several well-established games/genres. If it had just been called 'Candy Slots', being a candy-themed slot machine game, I might be a little more wholheartedly foaming at the mouth over this particular case.
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Thursday 23rd January 2014 10:31 GMT Richard Cranium
It should not be permissible to claim ownership of a dictionary word or a common phrase. It's just a way for guys with deep pockets to get lawyered up in order to screw individuals and small businesses to remove trivial competitors and block innovation.
I think my proposed "Easy i-Virgin apple leaf candy" product is doomed. (In case anyone misses the references :ownership of the word Easy is claimed by Easy Group easy.com, Virgin by Virgin.com and Apple and the letter "i" in front of anything by some guys who sell overpriced low spec computers dressed up as expensive fashion accessories, they also claim ownership of "leaf" - http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/12/10/apple_applies_to_trademark_the_leaf/#c_1656721). If our political classes weren't in the pocket of big business they'd legislate to prevent this theft of our language.
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Thursday 23rd January 2014 13:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
While I'm no great fan of king.com, and no fan at all of overbroad trademark enforcement, this:
"Candy is something we have all loved since we were children. I just wanted to create a game with a fun theme."
Yeah, right, buddy. Tell me another one. I'm totally sure that the (literally) hundreds of games which have sprouted with 'candy' in the title are just doing so because of developers' sudden and simultaneous nostalgia for childhood confectionery, and nothing whatsoever to do with search rankings. No, of course not. Far be it.
Try doing a search for 'saga' or 'crush' or 'craft' - any one of those terms will yield *at least* 500 games. This is not a cosmic coincidence.