Zynga Settles Bang With Friends Lawsuit

MarlaDesat

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Aug 22, 2013
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Zynga Settles Bang With Friends Lawsuit



Bang With Friends, Inc. will change its corporate name and rebrand its "casual sex app".

A rose by any other name is still a hook-up app, right? Bang With Friends, an iOS and Android app for discretely finding casual sex via Facebook will be changing its name and corporate identity after settling a trademark infringement lawsuit with Zynga. The terms of the settlement are confidential, but Bang With Friends, Inc. acknowledged Zynga's "With Friends" trademark rights in an email to Bloomberg.

Zynga filed the lawsuit in July [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126489-Zynga-Sues-Bang-With-Friends], claiming that the Bang With Friends title was chosen "with Zynga's game trademarks fully in mind." Renee Lawson, the deputy general counsel for Zynga, stated at the time that the company was "compelled to file suit to prevent further consumer confusion and protect its intellectual property rights against infringement." The social games developer has several "With Friends" titles, including Words With Friends, Gems With Friends, and Chess With Friends.

If you've never heard of Bang With Friends, don't worry, you're not alone. The app allowed you to log in with your Facebook profile and promised to never post to your wall. Once you had the app installed, you could identify those friends with which you would like to make the beast with two backs. You then wait, hoping that your friends do the same, and the app matches you up with anyone who shares your interest. Bang With Friends, Inc. already has a placeholder website [http://www.thenextbang.com/] up for its coming corporate rebranding. The page lets you sign up for a notification when the new app is available, if you're into that kind of thing.

Source: Polygon [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-30/zynga-settles-trademark-suit-against-bang-with-friends-.html].

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Ninmecu

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May 31, 2011
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I honestly live in a world where "With Friends" is Copyrighted? Seriously? What the hell is wrong with the world. Why would a casual sex app want to be linked with Zynga...Or is this "With Friends" game sexual in nature?
 

Seventh Actuality

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Apr 23, 2010
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It's pretty reasonable to copyright "With Friends" in the particular context of social phone apps, though, especially when a) there's a good chance people would confuse it with an official Zynga product and b) that was intentional.

The association with pound shop Scrabble probably wasn't a necessity for a fuckbuddy app, anyway, so they'll live.
 

Zombie_Moogle

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Dec 25, 2008
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I'm just amazed that Zynga has the balls to sue anyone for copyright infringement, considering everything they do is a pallet swap of actual designers' work
 

Elementary - Dear Watson

RIP Eleuthera, I will miss you
Nov 9, 2010
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Wow... Swinging has hit the 21st Century... and a popstation level cash-grabbing dirty company is trying to gain the upper hand on something... What is the world coming to?