Sad giant viking is sad.
Not content with trying to own the word “Candy”, King.com, the makers of Candy Crush Saga, also want to own the word “Saga”. So they’ve have taken legal action against strategy game The Banner Saga.
On December 27, 2013, King.com filed a “Notice of Opposition” with the US Patent and Trademark Office. It says that because King has 13 trademarks with the word “saga” in them, Stoic’s colourful strategy game isn’t allowed to use the word.
As part of the filing, King allege the following. And I promise you, this is a real document, not a joke.
The “Applicant” is Stoic, who were applying for a trademark on The Banner Saga. A turn-based strategy game with a rich RPG element and nordic inspiration. The “Opposer” is King.com. Who make some puzzle games with candy in them.
“Deceptively similar”? What planet are these people from?
This is what The Banner Saga looks like.
And this is what Candy Crush Saga looks like.
King.com aren’t seeking money. They “just” want Stoic’s application for a trademark on The Banner Saga to be refused (which would force the developers to change the game’s name).
We contacted Stoic, but they’re unable to comment about legal matters. We also contacted King.com, and will update if we hear back.
I’ve seen some stupid legal actions in my time here, but this one takes the stupid cake.
Comments
43 responses to “Candy Crush Saga Makers Go After The Banner Saga. For Real.”
Are they closely related in the way that they are games? Inb4 I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Edit: apparently the word saga actually originates from Nordic/Icelandic language. How fitting.
I gave up on humanity a long time ago – this shit doesn’t surprise me.
I think I might trademark the word “wolf”, because what the hell, right?
Then immediately sue wolves and get their name changed.
I figured the candy crush makers were dicks when I saw their Peggle rip off, but this BS confirms it. They’re the new Jamster of shitty mobile games.
This sounds like that time Games workshop tried the same thing with a small time novelist on Amazon over the word Space Marine.
ok, this is stupid, i was willing to let the whole candy trademark pass, i mean it’s all well and good to have frivolous legal claims up your sleeve to ward off actual frauds, but this? this is outright idiotic.
“saga” is not just a name, it’s a word with a literal definition, and is commonly used in media names owing to its very definition, and I’d argue that the banner saga adheres much more closely to the words definition then candy crush, regardless there is absolutely no grounds for king to suggest in any way that Saga is associated most prominently with their work and that it’s going to cause people to think products are associated with them when used.
if anything king.coms use of the word is more confusing to me, I mean what relevance does it even have to candy crush?
sounds to me like king.coms success has gone to their head, which has in turn gone so far up their own ass that they can no longer see reason in anything more complicated then simple word association.
It’s just another example of how this industry is becoming more and more commercial to the point where their mission statement should be ‘Take all the money, fuck everyone else’
#BoycottCandyCrush
Most of the online community already has/is…
… problem is that 99.999% of the candy crush playerbase has no idea about anything online that doesn’t come from facebook. And even if they did, guess how many fucks they’d give?
They WILL eat shit for this stupidity though…… oh they will >:-D
Yeah. Gamers might give a shit about this idiocy, but Candy Crush players aren’t ‘gamers’.
(As in the self-identifying label for industry-following hobbyists/enthusiasts, as opposed to ‘people who play games’. We really need a better label for this shit.)
Yeah, the traditional labels aren’t effective any more, now that gaming is no longer niche.
It’s like any form of media we already have which becomes mainstream.
Most people read books, but you have people who are into books/collectors, “bilbiophiles”.
Same with movies. We all watch movies, yet you have those who are “film buffs”.
Music has “audiophiles”, though that’s sort of for those who are into the technical side of music, not just the music itself.
Maybe we need to look at “gamerphile”? “game-buff”? I dunno…. both sound pretty shit to me, lol.
For now, I’m going to go with Gamer and person who plays games.
Lol @ American trademark laws. American litigation is a joke.
Deleted all King games off my phone.
I definitely would do the same if I actually had any installed, but I never play mobile games.
I’m going to delete them off my wife’s phone though. King needs to go the way of Zynga and die in a tyre fire.
I hope this doesn’t catch on. I’d hate to see EA trademark “Duty”.
Don’t give them any ideas.
They think they’re taking Candy from babies, but soon someone will Crush them and put an end to this ridiculous Saga. I’m no lawyer but at this point it seems King is trying to make a quick buck off threats of litigation before someone actually takes them to court and gets the trademark invalidated (see Tim Langdell and his attempted trademark of “Edge”). So far I’ve only heard of small studios who can’t afford to engage in litigation being asked to stop using the trademark. Hopefully Stoic will fight back and stop this ridiculous farce.
“Saga?” That’s it? Are you fucking kidding me?
Countersue, countersue, countersue.
Oh hell no.
Boycott.
Do they think people are babies who will confuse “Candy Crush Saga” with “The Banner Saga”?
http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/saga/results
Let’s see them go after the twilight saga, hah!
I notice there’s a game in that list simply called “Saga”. I’m curious how they claim to have priority over that game…
As trademark claims go, this is definitely at the sillier end of the scale – even worse than Bethesda’s claim on “Scrolls”.
Sadly (?) I have nothing to boycott, as I don’t have any of their games; I’m extremely cautious about installing F2P titles.
This smells of too many lawyers with time on their hands trying to justify their retainers.
I love the fact that The banner saga shows up with 100% relevance and candy crush isn’t even on page 1.
I told this news story to my wife and she got confused as she did not even realise that Candy Crush has the word “Saga” in the title. And she plays the game quite religiously.
By my reckoning Square Enix has released ten games in the SaGa series, are these muppets going to go after them too?
Taito did Rastan Saga back in the day, too.
Lego can take them to court so “screw you” because they use the word saga too.
This makes me want to purchase The Banner Saga..
Only an idiot could confuse these two games, of course look at the people spending thousands of dollars on Candy Crush and you can see why King is worried.
I’m going to trademark “THE”, so any title that wants to use it will have to pay me royalties directly.
THE Fast and THE Furious were gonna have to pay double…till they went to just “Fast & Furious”. The clever bastards.
I dunno guys, seems like “Saga” is a bit close to “Sega”. I say we sue them.
The sounds a lot worse in the headline than it actually is.
This is an opposition to Stoic getting the trademark. They’re not litigating against Stoic directly, they’re just informing the trademark office that “hey, we have all these trademarks that we think would be confused with this one”. Obviously its a bullshit claim and it’ll be thrown out.
It’s exactly the same as when Apple opposed Woolworth’s new “apple” style logo. But because the trademark system is almost as ridiculous as the patent one; if you think a new trademark is likely to dilute your brand… you make an opposing claim.
Still means King are a joke… but thanks for being the news.com.au of the gaming world Kotaku.
So if they have money and a bunch of lawyers, they think they can mess around like arseholes? WTH man
I’m just waiting for them to claim Candy Crush’s gameplay as their own idea so they can get EA on their asses
First Zynga, now King.com – it seems that the Facebook/mobile bigshots are intent on taking EA’s place as gaming’s #1 dickheads.
Breaking news:
Call of Juarez publishers to sue King.com for Trademark infringement over the use of the word Call.
Breaking news:
Call of Duty publishers to sue Call of Juarez for use of word Call.
Breaking news:
Blondie to sue everyone for the use of the word Call – ‘cos they had a song in the 80’s “Call me”.
seriously. I just saw an advertisement… on NATIONAL TELEVISION of there complete and utter peggle rip off… how the f do they think they are gonna get through with this? i honestly think popcap should just walk in and sue them instead.
Has the word “Crush” been trademarked yet? if not then someone should get on that immediately.
Soon games wont have names. They will be known as shooter number 3, rpg number 7 …
I’ve just invented a piece of plastic that fits into a small pocket. However, I still don’t know how to use it. It has a magnetic strip on the back. On the front there are some numbers to identify the owner. There is also space left for a logo. If I can squeeze my old Commodore64(tm) into something smaller, then I will attach it to the plastic card with instant glue.
Does this idea have any use in future?