UFC Sues Ubisoft Over Fighters Uncaged

[Andy Chalk]

UFC Sues Ubisoft Over Fighters Uncaged

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has sued Ubisoft for infringing on its trademark with the Kinect fighting game Fighters Uncaged [http://www.amazon.com/Fighters-Uncaged-Xbox-360/dp/B0043B5SKE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292009949&sr=8-1].

Ubisoft [http://www.ufc.com/] over a phrase on the back cover of the Xbox 360 game Fighters Uncaged, which says, "Become the ULTIMATE FIGHTING weapon!" Zuffa claims the phrase is "identical or confusingly similar" to its trademarked "Ultimate Fighting" name.

"Defendant's invitation for players to 'charge head first into the vicious world of illegal fighting' tarnishes the goodwill Zuffa has in its UFC marks," the company said in its lawsuit. "Zuffa has grown a successful mixed martial arts organization by moving away from the image of mixed martial arts as illegal street fighting, and taking it into the realm of a legitimate sport. This was no easy task and required years and much effort to reach today's legitimacy and widespread acceptance."

Zuffa is seeking an injunction against the use of its Ultimate Fighting trademarks in the game, a halt to all sales of Fighters Uncaged until the offending text is removed from the packaging and unspecified damages and costs.

The Kinect-exclusive Fighters Uncaged was released in November and is by all reports a stunningly bad game. Game Informer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-11-04-fighters-uncaged-review] said people would have more fun just getting into a fight with someone in front of their television. It sounds like Zuffa has a pretty good reason for getting as far away from this game as it possibly can.

Source: GamePolitics [http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/dec/10/ufc-sues-video-game/]



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[Amnestic]

Joystiq's reviewer refused to play the game long enough to come up with any score at all

Isn't that a bit of a reviewer faux pas? Oh well, suppose it does accurately illustrate just how bad it was.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Suing people over words. My god. *facepalm*
This is still a legitimate way to get people sued? I only pray this suit fails, and companies get their heads out of their asses.

 

[RollForInitiative]

It disturbs me to see that the English language itself has become grounds for frivolous lawsuits. The expression they used on the box is rather generic, don't you think? It hardly seems like grounds for a lawsuit but apparently somebody with a bare minimum of common sense and an axe to grind disagrees.

 

[CD-R]

So the game sucked pretty badly? Damn this was the only Kinect game I was somewhat interested in.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

This feels like just another case of using controversy to try to fuel sales. But imagine how quickly they would have attempted to file charges if the game were actually good and/or sold well.
"Become the Ultimate Fighting Weapon" is such an awkward phrase anyway.

 

[SnipeHunter11]

The funny thing is, the UFC suing Ubisoft means that this game gets even more press. Which means that some people might actually go out and buy it! Or rent it. Depends on how smart said person is. >.>

 

[sunburst]

"Become the Ultimate Fighting Weapon" is such an awkward phrase anyway.

Exactly. If it was, "Become the ULTIMATE FIGHTER!" then there would be a serious concern that it's too generic a phrase to be trademarked. But they instead specifically worded it unusually in order to get closer to the UFC name which happens to be the center of the MMA universe. This case seems totally legit to me. It's not like they're trademarking a single, common word such as edge or something.

 

[Fox334]

If anything, Ubi should be sued for making a terrible game...

 

[Keepitclean]

All of these bull shit cases seriously need to be thrown out of courts. Why are we allowing asshole corporations to sue over the use of everyday words. This is almost as bad as the wegmans/walgreens case

I think Zuffa has a case here. If they can trade make "Ultimate Fighting Championship" then this is probably an infringement.

 

[samsonguy920]

Much as I have grown wearisome of trademark suits over wording, I don't feel bad for Ubisoft in this case considering their fascist ideals about game piracy. Too bad it would seem it is such a sucky game, but considering the content, who is surprised?

This is stupid. It not that big of a deal.

If anything, Ubi should be sued for making a terrible game...

The latter would seem to justify the former. Shake hands, gentleman for making this thread.

 

[Antari]

You have to spend money to make money. In this case you pay a lawyer to sue another lawyer.