King: We Don't Want Everyone's Candy, Just IP Infringers'

[Weaver]

They can claim they're targeting infringes only, but it really seems like they just don't want anyone to have games that can start with the word "Candy". "Candy Crush" is certainly their trademark, but "Candy", I postulate, is simply just too damn general.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Someone should make a game about Space Candy Marines...

What about:

John Candy: Space Marine

Hell. It's about time.

 

[Alterego-X]

Besides the obvious difference in names, how can you trademark something that's been in use for far longer than your game exists? In patent law you are denied the patent if there's prior art. How is it that trademark law doesn't have this? Or is it there and this judge just willfully ignored it?

Patents and copyrights protect creation. Trademark protects recognizeable image.

Same as why "Apple" or "Windows" or "Google" or "Amazon" can be trademarked. Even if these words have existed before, they can be trademarked because otherwise anyone could just deceptively pretend to be them.

Trademark isn't about protecting creative work, it's about protecting consumers' informed choice by guaranteeing that sellers get to accurately represent their brand with words that has already been associated with them.

In trademark, the limit is generalization. You can't trademark "Apple" for selling apples, or "Windows" as a brand of windows, and then force others to call their windows something else, because in that field, the trademark was never understood to imply branding. Likewise, the Candy trademark doesn't extend to actual candy manufacturers.

 

[DjinnFor]

One of the only legitimate complaints on both sides was the "pinch to zoom" functionality, which appears to have been a copy/paste job. Other than that the entire affair was two companies trolling each other wasting court time.

Fun fact about software patent law: you can only protect the code itself and not the idea for the code. All those patents you see that are just diagrams about how the code will work if they make it are illegal AS HELL. Patent courts just have a long and storied history of not knowing what the hell they're doing when it comes to software.

The problem with precedent and case law is that precedent and case law determine what law is. If courts fuck up, the product of their fuck up is now the precedent.

In trademark, the limit is generalization.

Even under the assumptions you present for the purpose of trademark law, "it's also a video game" is well past the limit of generalization.

 

[likalaruku]

We see you trollin', we hatin'.

I'd boycott this game, but I'm already not playing it. I remember trying it on a phone & getting bored in 5 minutes.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Are we still pretending that US copyright law is anything other then a collection of stinking bullshit created mostly for huge corporations to abuse smaller ones?

Why?

I'm not saying Copyright laws in general are bad, the US ones just seem to be primarily created to be as obstructive and easy to abuse as possible.