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Candy Crush Saga make King is reaching out to the press to clarify its attempt to trademark the word ‘candy’.
It was revealed this morning that the company has received approval from the US Patent and Trademark Office over the trademarking of the term and that if it is successful it will receive exclusive use of the term in any video games and clothing products.
With such a high number of games and apps using the word in their titles, the fear is that many will be forced to rebrand or remove their games from sales.
"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,” King told MCV, and many others.
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.
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’, focussing 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 calculated attempt to use other companies’ IP to enhance its own games, through means such as search rankings."
