Today a friend told me that a game company has managed to get the European Union trademark for a very common word in the English language, when that word is used in the title of a game or article of clothing.<\/p>\n
This is significance for those of us on the other side of the pond because the U.S., which generally honors E.U. trademark decisions, has issued a provisional trademark for such uses of this word.<\/p>\n
And the lawyers at Apple Inc. are already enforcing that decision, since Apple distributes the game on its devices.<\/p>\n
I probably shouldn’t use the word here, because some clever lawyer at Apple could plausibly imply that a “blog” is a kind of “game”, and that therefore I would be in violation of trademark laws. Remember, these are the people who recently proved in a court of law that Myron Krueger’s use of pinch-to-zoom in 1983 was actually first invented twenty five years later by Apple Inc. But that’s another crush saga.<\/p>\n
So here is fair warning: If you are foolish enough to use that word in the title of a game you write or an article of clothing you sell, thinking that somehow you get a free pass because you played Candyland as a kid or like to wear candystripe pants, then you’ve got another think coming.<\/p>\n
But what I can do is provide some alternate titles for frustrated game designers who would like a good name for their game, but are not allowed to use a certain word that starts with “C”. Herewith some possible titles, none of which have been trademarked, and all of which I would be happy to grant to any and all under an open source Creative Commons license:<\/p>\n
\nBubble Gum Crush Saga
\nButterscotch Crush Saga
\nCaramel Cream Crush Saga
\nCherry Balls Crush Saga
\nChocolate Crush Saga
\nCinammon Sticks Crush Saga
\nCircus Peanuts Crush Saga
\nGobstopper Crush Saga
\nGumdrop Crush Saga
\nGumball Crush Saga
\nGummi Bear Crush Saga
\nGummi Worm Crush Saga
\nJawbreaker Crush Saga
\nJellybean Crush Saga
\nLemon Drop Crush Saga
\nLicorice Crush Saga
\nLollipop Crush Saga
\nMarshmallow Crush Saga
\nPeanut Butter Cup Crush Saga
\nSalt Water Taffy Crush Saga\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nAll of the above titles are, as far as I know, legally free and clear for the taking. Just in case you’d like to use one as the title of your game. Or your article of clothing.<\/p>\n
You are very welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today a friend told me that a game company has managed to get the European Union trademark for a very common word in the English language, when that word is used in the title of a game or article of clothing. This is significance for those of us on the other side of the pond … Continue reading “Crush saga”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14346"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14346"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14357,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14346\/revisions\/14357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}