After pissing of, well, pretty much everyone, with their effort to trademark the word “candy,” the company behind Candy Crush Saga is backing off from their absurd effort to trademark the word in the U.S. However, in Europe…
According to documents posted by the U.S. Trademark office and uncovered by Polygon, ”the applicant hereby expressly abandons the application for trademark registration made.” The documents were filed yesterday on February 24, 2014, in response to a trademark that was originally filed on February 6th, 2013 and approved on January 5th of this year.
Such a trademark would have given King exclusive rights to use the word “candy” in games, on clothing, and numerous other types of merchandise.
Soon after the trademark was approved, King immediately started screwing with everyone, challenging any games that had the “candy” in their title. Emboldened, they even began lobbying against the game Banner Saga, because it contained the word “saga”!
In response, a number of game developers joined forces and created “Candy Jam,” a campaign designed to bring attention to King’s ridiculous tactics. The campaign consisted of a flood of games that contained wither the word “candy” or “sage” in the title.
In a statement to Kotaku, a King spokesman said the following:
King has withdrawn its trademark application for Candy in the U.S., which we applied for in February 2013 before we acquired the early rights to Candy Crusher. Each market that King operates in is different with regard to IP. We feel that having the rights to Candy Crusher is the best option for protecting Candy Crush in the U.S. market. This does not affect our E.U. trademark for Candy and we continue to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP.
So yeah, “yay” for U.S. developers and such, but King is still going for the trademark in the old country.
