
Zynga sues sex app maker over Bang With Friends name - yctay
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23515738
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josh2600
Protecting trademarks is serious business.

Remember when Monster Cable sued Monster Mini-golf? Personally, I think Zynga
has more important things to worry about, and I get this is a big deal for the
startup, but it's just a corporate lawyer doing his job.

I'm not saying it's right, but if someone made another, more accurately
targeted, ____ With Friends game, they could cite Zynga's inaction with
respect to Bang With Friends as not protecting their trademark.

As with all things legal, the underlying reality is less interesting than the
potential interpretation. Granted, if I'm wrong and they actually wanna put
Bang With Friends out of business, well that would be just plain sad.

~~~
3825
Is it OK, if BWF pays a cent in a perpetual royalty? Will Zynga have any
obligation to license others the name at the same price?

~~~
josh2600
I don't believe Zynga has any obligation to provide standardized royalty
licensing to any particular person or entity.

Whether it's ok or not is entirely up to Zynga and their counsel.

~~~
benjamincburns
Not that there's _any_ coherent logic to IP law, but logically what's the
difference between zero royalty paid (aka not protecting the trademark) and
settling on a fixed-price perpetual royalty of negligible cost?

It's so weird to me how in some areas of the law (criminal law, for instance)
the "gray area" is embraced and fully considered, where in other areas
(IP/business law) decisions seem to be so black-and-white. As a total layman,
I'd guess this "tone" is completely set by case law?

If so, is there any precedent that says a fixed cost perpetual royalty priced
at $0.01 or similar constitutes "protecting" a trademark?

~~~
njharman
That part of IP law is actually sane. Instead of perpetual monopoly over
something the "owner" doesn't even care about. Names (i.e. trademarks) will go
back into the pool when they are no longer used/valued/desired by "owner". The
cost and requirements of "maintenance" also stops trivial, speculative, or
trollish trademarks.

Copyright use to have similar sense (must apply, must renew).

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klausjensen
There is something distinctly disgusting about Zynga suing somebody for using
a phrase "[someting] with friends", that they feel they own - when the whole
company is basically built on stealing ideas of other companies and adding
"oh-look-wow-facebook-spam" to them.

~~~
cheald
Well, given that they're basically a parasite on a host company that thinks it
owns all names with the words "Face" or "Book" in them, are we surprised?

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benjamincburns
Honestly, when you first heard of "Bang With Friends," would you have been
surprised if it was yet another quality Zynga production?

Even if you wouldn't have - "Bang With Friends" instantly connects with "Words
With Friends" in my mind. This is a really unpopular and unexpected thing to
say, but for once I don't think Zynga is in the wrong.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I didn't make the connection at all until today. I think it's because "Words"
is a noun, and "Bang" is a verb. "[noun] With Friends" gets represented as a
completely different thing in my mind than "[verb] With Friends" (i.e. the
latter is an action, the former is language nonsense).

~~~
TylerE
The pattern doesn't actually hold: Matching With Friends and Hanging With
Friends are both Zynga titles.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You're right. I didn't know about that two.

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jval
Wow, the creators of BWF must be celebrating tonight. Look at all this free
press, now they can say they've been covered by BBC too!

~~~
mmmooo
Exactly what I was thinking. They were in the press early on, and had a huge
boost in users. Looks like things have been slowly dying since then, down more
then 80% since peak. All the coverage should boost them right back, even if
they are forced to change their name.

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jgalt212
I prefer it in French version: Sexe Entre Amis

1\. It just sounds more sexy. 2\. It avoids US Trademark issues. 3\. Carlos
Danger is an investor.

~~~
sharkweek
Random note: My friend is married to a woman from France -- the first
Christmas they were together after a few months of dating, she was like "have
you seen 'Mother, I missed the Plane' it's a family tradition to watch it each
Christmas," to which my friend said no. When she put the movie in, it was Home
Alone

Gotta love random translations

~~~
psuter
The weirdest ones are titles that get "translated" into a different one, also
in English. E.g. "The In Crowd" becoming "Sex & Manipulations".

~~~
mercer
One of my favorites is the German title for 'Die Hard', which is 'Stirb
Langsam'. The literal translation of this is 'die slowly'...

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ISL
First they laugh at you, then they sue you, then you win.

BWF is a funny name, leverages the WWF name more than a little, and is going
to get great press from the legal fight.

Congratulations to BWF for getting sued; you're getting traction. If the BWF
network gets large enough, it could be renamed almost anything and it will
still work.

~~~
bdcravens
This assumes that it's merely an injunction against the name. There's a real
possibility of damages being awarded in a situation like this.

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gcheong
As far as I can tell their trademark seems pretty specific that it applies to
game apps only:
[http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:p9i0qr...](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:p9i0qr.3.30)
. Is there a case to be made that BWF would somehow cause confusion?

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jessaustin
It was only this week that Zynga management finally decided whether to sue BWF
or to greenlight Zynga's new, innovative "Bang with Friends with Friends" app.
A rare paroxysm of self-respect at the company prevented them from taking both
actions simultaneously.

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mattbarrie
LOL. How can Zynga possibly win here? Bang with Friends gets free
marketing......

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dbond
Doesn't the infringement have to be in the same category as the trademark? A
dating app seems quite far from games.

~~~
njharman
Category "mobile apps". Just need right lawyer/judge combo to "prove" that in
court.

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yashg
Zynga will do better to actually make better games that someone will play than
going after small app developers over flimsy reasons. Oh and they can't own
the phrase "... with friends"!

~~~
m_ram
Zynga has a lot of people to sue if they want to own "... with friends."

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22*%20with%20fr...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22*%20with%20friends%22)

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jseip
Glad to see Zynga is laser-focused on stopping their revenue decline...

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scottmcleod
Free press, mega-user adoption, change name then next news story is their
acquisition.

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aeurielesn
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Seriously.

~~~
jameskilton
It does seem stupid but they have to. It's like the Bethesda / Mojang
trademark battle over "Scrolls". Trademark law, at least in this country, is
strict. If you don't go after potential trademark infringements diligently and
in a reasonable time period, then you will quickly lose the legal right to do
so.

~~~
shawn-furyan
It doesn't really legitimize this suit to compare it with another famously
absurd trademark infringement battle. "Scrolls" are a fantasy trope (meaning
it's so commonly used that it's considered unimaginative)! You can't have
that! I think that "Elder Scrolls" is distinctive and trademark-able.
"Scrolls" is not.

Setting aside the issue of whether the phrase "With Friends" is distinctive,
and therefore trademarkable, BWF and WWF do not serve remotely similar
purposes, so they're not going to lose their right to defend the trademark in
their own market.

Finally, their big trademark blunder was using an indefensible trademark. The
damage there has already been done. It doesn't make sense to then hurt your
brand's reputation by linking it in the minds of your customers with a hookup
app. The fact that this story is on the front page of Hacker News means that
the Streisand effect is hurting the brand already (not that Zynga has a
sterling reputation here). Sometimes it's a tactical error to do what the
legal department recommends, and this is one of those cases.

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kalleboo
Reminds of me of the 90's when Maxis tried to claim trademark over any game
who's name began with the letters "Sim"

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j546
Only Zynga could make this headline believable

~~~
bdcravens
The Susan B. Komen organization has sued several charities over the word
"cure" (and especially "for the cure")

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/07/komen-foundation-
ch...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/07/komen-foundation-charities-
cure_n_793176.html)

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kwestro
Thanks for sharing this comical story. lol. Zynga, of all companies. Suing?
They're crazy.

