King.com Steals Candy From The App Store

Unusual goings on in the App Store today, as a popular developer of social games has decided to get all legal and trademark the word “Candy”. King.com, known for making a shedload of money from unoriginal game ideas, combined with In App Purchases, have trademarked the word in terms of videogames, gambling services, amusements and unusually, apparel. Already, they are using this trademark to get other games removed from the App Store.

As reported by Gamezebo, games such as the lengthily titled “All Candy Casino Slots – Jewel Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land have already been targeted, and asked to remove their app from sale.

A further report from GamesIndustry.biz (via VG247) has indicated that a representative from King.com has responded to the story, stating:

“We have trademarked the word ‘CANDY’ in the EU, as our IP is constantly being infringed and we have to enforce our rights and to protect our players from confusion. We don’t enforce against all uses of CANDY – some are legitimate and of course, we would not ask App developers who use the term legitimately to stop doing so.

The particular App in this instance was called ‘Candy Casino Slots – Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land’, but its icon in the App store just says ‘Candy Slots’, focussing heavily on our trademark. As well as infringing our and other developer’s IP, use of keywords like this as an App name is also a clear breach of Apple’s terms of use. We believe this App name was a a calculated attempt to use other companies’ IP to enhance its own games, through means such as search rankings.”

It remains to be seen how far King.com take with this legal power.