King (Candy Crush Saga dev) and its trademark claims to common nouns

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#1

For those of who not aware of the current goings-on, the guys behind the insanely popular Candy Crush Saga have recently decided to trademark the word "candy" on the grounds that any other IP with even the word in its name will generate brand confusion with customers.

More perniciously, King has decided to strike again, targeting the recently released indie strategy RPG title The Banner Saga and its developer (of only a few individuals to my knowledge) Stoic because they dare to feature the word "saga" in the title. Stoic, having just released the first episode of the trilogy as well as the accompanying multiplayer counterpart to the game, intends to complete The Banner Saga as a trilogy, but King intends to scupper this unless presumably Stoic renames the games because of some legal motions.

Just to give you an idea of what King's asinine reasoning for this is: aside from Candy Crush Saga, they also possess other meaningless titles such as Pet Rescue Saga and Farm Heroes Saga. In this wild leap in logic, Stoic's games could cause confusion among customers and fans of King's games, and this move is to protect the integrity of King's IPs or some crap.

I don't expect many of you here to be very aware of The Banner Saga, but I just want to raise awareness, if you haven't already seen it talked about online. It's spurred me to purchase the game and support Stoic firstly because it looks like a good game and one for strategy RPG fans, and secondly, this is a tiny, fledgling developer who is determined to hold on to the "Saga" name (what company has the right to a monopoly on a common noun?) against a company with millions to afford an army of lawyers.

Additionally, if you look up the etymology of the word, ask yourself which game deserves use of "Saga" in the name. Candy Crush or Banner? Exactly.
 
Last edited:

ImminentBread

Balamb Garden Freshman
Sep 28, 2013
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#3
A few days ago, I saw an ad for Candy Crush Saga on TV. I don't even know anymore.

This wouldn't be the first time a company tried to claim rights on a common word -- as that article notes -- but I'd say that "Candy" and especially "Saga" are just a bit more common than "Edge". Thank you for sharing this with us. I sincerely hope that King's trademark is taken away, but that probably (unfortunately) won't happen.

Also, just FYI, that second link leads to scupper/ and not an article.
 

APZonerunner

Network Boss-man
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Jul 25, 2013
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#4
This entire thing is absolutely ridiculous. Candy Crush Saga is huge, don't get me wrong, but their actions are pretty awful. At the same time, though, everybody else is blowing it way out of proportion.

It doesn't really make sense for people to be allowed to trademark such simple words. I'm going to trademark bread. Good luck, bread manufacturers. Milk, as well.

US trademark law is a mess.