King’s ‘Candy’ trademark in EU challenged by ZeptoLab
Developer of ‘Cut the Rope’, ZeptoLab has registered a claim in Europe against the word ‘Candy’, trademarked by King.com.
As per a press statement, the reason for the claim registered with the European Union in London on March 20 was with the objective of cancelling King’s hold on “candy” and permitting other developers to use the term ‘Candy’ freely in their own games. The player’s task in ZeptoLab’s own Cut the Rope games is to try to put candy in the mouth of its character, the critter Om Nom.
In January this year, King had tried to trademark the word ‘candy’ in U.S. explaining that its attempt was to prevent other developers from cloning their game; however, they had abandoned this move last month.
ZeptoLab said in statement that King.com presently has a registered trademark for the word ‘candy’ in the European Union that covers video games, video game services, and clothing and that they are using this registration in EU as a foundation to file trademark registration for ‘candy’ in various other countries. ZeptoLab explains that although King.com withdrew its application for the word ‘Candy’ in U.S., the registration for the word ‘Candy’ is still active in the European Union, and if this lawsuit against King.com is successful, all the application for registering the word ‘Candy’ based on the European Union registration will be dissolved.
CEO of ZeptoLab, Misha Lyalin, said that the word ‘Candy’ is an inherent part of the ‘Cut the Rope’ franchise, and that they do not approve King.com trademarking the word and preventing others from using it.
Trademark Registration in Japan
Patent Attorney：Hiroshi Oogai
Address：304 BUREX Hirakawacho 1-5-15 Hirakawa-cho,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Phone：＋81-3-4570-0792
Mail：contact @ trademark-registration-japan.com
