Candy Crush Saga creators, King Digital Entertainment, has filed a request to abandon their controversial trademark of the word ‘candy’ - but only in America.
The company have come under heavy fire from the public since this ordeal started in January 2014. King, in an effort to protect their IP, started filing trademarks for the relatively common words ‘candy’ and ‘saga’ in both US and European patent offices. King started clamping down on any developers who dared use these two words they sought to own. The company came under particularly heavy fire from the games community after attacking completely unrelated titles such as the Norse strategy RPG, The Banner Saga, in case gamers confused it with their product.
The backlash from King’s epic saga of trying to rule the industry with petty trademarks even went so far as inspiring the CandyJam - a game jam devoted to making games with the words ‘candy’ and ‘saga’ in them.
“King has withdrawn its trademark application for Candy in the US, which we applied for in February 2013 before we acquired the early rights to Candy Crusher.” a spokesperson for King said in a statement released yesterday. “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 US market.”
King also acquired the rights to the term ‘Candy Crusher’ earlier this year, in a bid to legitimize their own name. The fact that an earlier, similar game made by another company already existed called Candy Crusher is, of course, not King’s problem.
While King may be letting go of the word ‘candy’ in America, the company has not withdrawn its claim in Europe.
“This does not affect our EU trademark for Candy and we continue to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP.”
Nic Bunce
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