The IncGamers legal team advises me that this image is okay.
Update: According to the LA Times, King does not have the trademark for ‘Candy’ in the US. It’s making its way through the US Patent and Trademark Office system, but is not yet approved. They do, however, seem to own it in Europe. Presumably it’s on this basis that they’ve been contacting developers of other games with ‘Candy’ in the title. Original story follows …
You may have already heard over the past couple of days that somebody over at the US European Trademark Office got drunk (or something) and allowed King.com (makers of horrible money-leeching gameĀ Candy Crush Saga) to trademark the word “Candy” as it pertains to videogames, clothing and, err, educational services.
This isn’t some sort of weird conspiracy. This actually happened, and King.com’s fierce legal team is now busy intimidating other games that have ‘Candy’ in their titles. In fact, this nonsense isn’t ending at the word Candy, because they want dibs on the word ‘Saga’ too. To the extent that King.com are formally opposing the trademarking of Stoic’s The Banner Saga. I mean obviously, right? It’s pretty easy to mistake a PC RPG about Vikings for a Bejeweled clone.
So this is all a bit mental, obviously. Which is why The Candy Jam game jam now exists. The submission page urges people to create games with ‘Candy’ in the title (bonus points offered for ‘Saga’ or ‘Scrolls’ and a few others.) Your deadline is 3 February. Developers, you know what to do. King.com, kindly bugger off with all this nonsense.
