
CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark - mkenyon
http://www.candyswipe.com/king.html
======
ChuckMcM
It would be interesting if Apple would step in here. They could, given their
obscenely vague appstore "rules", simply delete the CandyCrush Saga game out
of the store as it is a copy of an existing game. That would force King to be
a bit more creative in their copying in the future.

That said, "protecting" games has been a problem, almost literally forever. On
the one hand you want folks to benefit from there work, on the other hand
sometimes a 'derivative' is a much much better game. So do you cut off that
like we've done with software patents? Or not?

~~~
werdnapk
I'm the author of a popular app that has been copied by many many other
developers. Despite many complaints to try and limit the copy-cats, Apple does
nothing and leaves the issue up to the developers to sort out between
themselves for the most part and it's absolutely frustrating.

Watching an app be successful and then watching the copy-cats swoop in to feed
on your success as Apple (or Google) do nothing is very difficult to deal
with.

~~~
ebbv
Welcome to capitalism. If you were a web app, or a brick and mortar store,
there would be no Apple or Google for you to appeal to. Only the courts, which
you have anyway, but which have no sway over developers in China, etc.

Honestly I can't believe you (and other) developers are surprised when this
happens.

My company's web site was copy and pasted wholesale by a competitor, and we
had to threaten legal action against them in order to get them to replace it.
(Probably with someone else's.)

~~~
wpietri
The claim for the Apple marketplace was that it would be a better place, a
well-tended garden. Better for consumers, better for vendors, and worth Apple
taking a large slice of profits. So I think it's reasonable that developers
are surprised.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Exactly. What is the point of the walled garden if it protects neither
producers nor consumers?

~~~
10feet
How are the consumers in any way affected by this?

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Less choice when all the independents die out, inferior products because
unoriginality isn't punished, confusion over product differentiation leading
to undesired purchases ... the consumer is getting screwed right, left, and
center.

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ToastyMallows
Ouch. I had no idea CandySwipe even existed. This doesn't look good for
King.com at all, especially after they were accused of copying
Scamperghost[0].

[0]: [http://junkyardsam.com/kingcopied/](http://junkyardsam.com/kingcopied/)

~~~
shdon
Honestly, Candy Crush and CandySwipe, while both using the candy theme, are
rather different in terms of gameplay. Unlike the Scamperghost case, it is
certainly not the case that Candy Crush is a copy of CandySwipe or even
derivative. Candy Crush is the better game at least in terms of polish and
long-term playability.

I won't deny King's douchiness in the trademark case, which will no doubt hurt
Mr. Ransom and Runsome Games, but this is not like the Scamperghost case (and
nowhere does Mr. Ransom imply that it is -- he's just calling out King on its
evil scheme of attempting to quash a pre-existing trademark).

~~~
JangoSteve
True, but gameplay was never really the issue in terms of trademarking "Candy"
(and "Saga" or whatever else). The interesting thing is that, in order to
defend a trademark, you have to prove that there is potential for confusion.
Here we have someone who supposedly had a confusingly-similar trademark before
Candy Crush showing actual user confusion (i.e. no need to argue potential if
you can show it's already happening).

~~~
shdon
The douchiness of King's move is not in question. I'm just pointing out that,
apart from generally being similarly evil, it's not at all related to the
Scamperghost thing. We should be angry at King for two different ways in which
they are evil, not two counts of the same thing. If anything, this makes them
worse.

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kzahel
That's pretty dirty. If you have no legitimate claim to a trademark, just buy
an existing slightly related trademark and use that!

~~~
loceng
I am surprised that this would pass in court as being a legitimate means of
existing.

~~~
hitiek
It doesn't have to pass in court as long as you have more money than your
opponent. You just keep going until they run out of money.

~~~
adam-f
It seems to me that the anti-SLAPP laws apply in spirit here (of restricting
overbearing litigation.)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation)

~~~
nness
It might be, but sadly and more realistically, the costs of a completely fair
and honest dispute would still be incredibly inhibiting.

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troymc
It seems to me that making games for the iTunes App Store has become a "red
ocean strategy." It's fiercely competitive, and there are now some monster
sharks (e.g. King, Zynga). I don't like the sharks, but hey, they're sharks:
they're doing what sharks do.

Time to look for some blue ocean, I guess.

~~~
NinjaWarrior
You imply the web is the blue ocean? :)

I've experienced countless hotlinkings, rippings, clones, insults, DoS attacks
and cybersquattings as a former Flash game developer. Luckily, I have not been
involved in any trademark issues, but it is happening also on the web, isn't
it?

~~~
troymc
I didn't imply anything about the web.

I was just referencing the ideas in this book (with which I have no
affiliation):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy)

------
incision
_> "You are able to do this because only within the last month you purchased
the rights to a game named Candy Crusher (which is nothing like CandySwipe or
even Candy Crush Saga)."_

How does this work? Can one buy a trademark in order to pre-empt someone
else's trademark which pre-empts another of your own?

~~~
mongol
I guess that buying the intellectual property rights to the game, they can say
to the trademark office - look here, proof or presence in the gaming market
under this name since 200X, therefore we should have the the trademark and the
exclusive right to name things candy.

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iluvuspartacus
Seriously, why isn't this guy able to win this and gain monetary damages?

~~~
TheSwordsman
I'm guessing the cost of actually doing this is more than he has. And even if
he wins, I'm sure King.com will spend months or years trying to appeal the
ruling which will cost him more money.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Well if the case is strong enough, the US at least you don't need money, you
tell the lawyers they can keep the the money all you want is to establish your
right to the trademark.

Then they go off and bring this guy down, make their money, and you get the
satisfaction of knowing that your trademark is safe.

~~~
VikingCoder
...unless the law is clear, and he's destined to lose. Then no lawyer will
touch it on the terms you describe.

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kumarski
Hey dude,

That sucks.

As a favor, I went ahead and gave them a shit review.

If I had more time, I might link farm their brand name all over the place.

~~~
mrchess
Just deleted Candy Crush myself and low reviewed them. This is ridiculous.

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werdnapk
King is no different than Zynga.

The best formula for making it in the appstore is to copy other peoples work.
This has been apparent for quite some time now.

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sheff
This sort of thing is happening increasingly frequently. I really like the
idea of AskPatents (
[http://patents.stackexchange.com](http://patents.stackexchange.com) ).

It seems to me that as developers we need a similar site where people can
start objecting to overly broad trademarks, especially single word ones which
are targeted at web service and application name related trademark classes.

There are probably much fewer trademarks issued that patents, and they are
easily searchable online, eg the UK Trademark Journal is at
[http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-tmj/tm-
journals/2014-006/index.html](http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-tmj/tm-
journals/2014-006/index.html) .

A trademark is also much easier to object to than a patent (
[http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-other/t-object/t-afterpub/t...](http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-other/t-object/t-afterpub/t-oppose/t-oppose-
apply.htm) ).

It would be a great weekend project for someone to create a web app which does
some of this. You could even charge businesses a fee to monitor words that may
affect their businesses.

------
relaunched
There is a constant struggle between doing what's right for your business and
doing the right thing. Until you are placed in that position, you really have
no idea what you'll do.

I hope this post brings about enough social pressure to ensure that the right
thing, whatever that means, happens.

~~~
michaelbuddy
You have no idea what you'll do but among the social pressure the right
decsions should have been pretty obvious by now. F-- candy krus h

------
stevenj
Somewhat related and something I've thought about over the years:

"Here's a model that we've had trouble with. Maybe you'll be able to figure it
out better. Many markets get down to two or three big competitors—or five or
six. And in some of those markets, nobody makes any money to speak of. But in
others, everybody does very well.

Over the years, we've tried to figure out why the competition in some markets
gets sort of rational from the investor's point of view so that the
shareholders do well, and in other markets, there's destructive competition
that destroys shareholder wealth.

If it's a pure commodity like airline seats, you can understand why no one
makes any money. As we sit here, just think of what airlines have given to the
world—safe travel, greater experience, time with your loved ones, you name it.
Yet, the net amount of money that's been made by the shareholders of airlines
since Kitty Hawk, is now a negative figure—a substantial negative figure.
Competition was so intense that, once it was unleashed by deregulation, it
ravaged shareholder wealth in the airline business.

Yet, in other fields—like cereals, for example—almost all the big boys make
out. If you're some kind of a medium grade cereal maker, you might make 15% on
your capital. And if you're really good, you might make 40%. But why are
cereals so profitable—despite the fact that it looks to me like they're
competing like crazy with promotions, coupons and everything else? I don't
fully understand it.

Obviously, there's a brand identity factor in cereals that doesn't exist in
airlines. That must be the main factor that accounts for it.

And maybe the cereal makers by and large have learned to be less crazy about
fighting for market share—because if you get even one person who's hell-bent
on gaining market share.... For example, if I were Kellogg and I decided that
I had to have 60% of the market, I think I could take most of the profit out
of cereals. I'd ruin Kellogg in the process. But I think I could do it.

In some businesses, the participants behave like a demented Kellogg. In other
businesses, they don't. Unfortunately, I do not have a perfect model for
predicting how that's going to happen.

For example, if you look around at bottler markets, you'll find many markets
where bottlers of Pepsi and Coke both make a lot of money and many others
where they destroy most of the profitability of the two franchises. That must
get down to the peculiarities of individual adjustment to market capitalism. I
think you'd have to know the people involved to fully understand what was
happening."

-Charlie Munger [http://ycombinator.com/munger.html](http://ycombinator.com/munger.html)

~~~
ToastyMallows
Damn that's an intimidating wall of text in that link.

~~~
jemfinch
What does this comment add to the conversation?

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kaa2102
It is a travesty that trademark trolls are enriching themselves based on the
hard work and creativity of others. I hope that Runsom Apps prevails.

------
Dalai_Llama
The day King goes down the drain many will dance upon its grave, and other
indie devs will take turns to pee on it.

May swift karmic justice fall upon them soon.

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mixologic
A corporate legal team stealing intellectual property and trademarks from
smaller entities is more american than apple pie and baseball.

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jason_slack
so, is that all these big game companies do, just copy?

Seems that King and Zynga have been called out a few times recently.

So are they hoping that they can clone a game just enough and hope people buy
it because of their name versus some indie dev you may not have heard of?

~~~
jasonlotito
> so, is that all these big game companies do, just copy?

Well, don't just limit it to big companies. Small companies, even startups
just copy away. And it's not just games, but apps in general.

~~~
jason_slack
I dont think I see it as often in other apps. Look at the hype around Flappy
Bird clones right now.

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blhack
Wow they are not kidding about the ripoff...

Even the "wildcard" game piece is almost identical.

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loceng
Was this posted to Reddit yet?

~~~
egb
Here -->
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1xq1k6/candyswipe_op...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1xq1k6/candyswipe_open_letter_to_king_candy_crush/)

~~~
loceng
Thanks

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fnordfnordfnord
Somebody ought to make a law that would protect people against things like
that. /s

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lazyeye
Perhaps a legal defense could be funded through something like KickStarter?

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izzydata
Damn copyright trolls. It's a shame this can't be more known.

~~~
mkr-hn
It's spreading quickly in the gamedev/writer community on Twitter.

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ale7714
This is so sad and unfair

