[Updated] Candy Crush Dev Now Goes After The Banner Saga - News

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Yesterday we reported that King, the developer of hit mobile game Candy Crush Saga, had managed to trademark the word 'Candy' and had begun issuing trademark infringement warnings to developers on the App Store.

Apparently they're not content to stop there. Eurogamer are reporting that as well as issuing warnings to a number of 'Candy'-related games, King are now also going after the Kickstarter-funded game The Banner Saga, over its use of the word 'Saga', stating:

"The Banner Saga mark is confusingly and deceptively similar to Opposer's previously used Saga Marks. The use and registration by Applicant of the mark The Banner Saga for Applicant's goods is likely to cause confusion or to cause mistake or deception in the trade, and among purchasers and potential purchasers, with Opposer's Saga Marks, again resulting in damage to Opposer."

Update:

King have now issued a statement defending their warning against the developers of The Banner Saga, claiming that they've only done so to protect their ability to enforce their rights to the trademark:

"King has not and is not trying to stop Banner Saga from using its name. We do not have any concerns that Banner Saga is trying build on our brand or our content. However, like any prudent company, we need to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP, both now and in the future.

In this case, that means preserving our ability to enforce our rights in cases where other developers may try to use the Saga mark in a way which infringes our IP rights and causes player confusion. If we had not opposed Banner Saga's trade mark application, it would be much easier for real copy cats to argue that their use of 'Saga' was legitimate.

This is an important issue for King because we already have a series of games where 'Saga' is key to the brand which our players associate with a King game; Candy Crush Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, Farm Heroes Saga and so on. All of these titles have already faced substantive trademark and copyright issues with clones."

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