Not so sweet as Candy
will I get in trouble for using this word now?
I remember a few years ago, when I was starting out as a reporter on CRN, one of my predecessors had a framed picture of a letter from a particular brand of portable cabin on the wall.
It was a legal letter and was very seriously written in a passive aggressive manner, but reading it brightened up my day considerably, no mattter how many times I read it. In fact I don't think I've read anything so petty since!
The letter basically threatened that if we so much as wrote the word again, they would start legal proceedings against us. The word belonged to them. Hint: Put Portable and Cabin together - perhaps replacing the 'c' with a 'k' and you know who I'm talking about.
This came about because the trademark owners of this particular brand actually employs someone to trawl through newspapers, magazines and now online I'm sure, to find out if anyone has used their brand without permission.
My favourite news vehicle Private Eye also went through a prolonged spate of P*** taking by using said word as a headline for all their letters page, after they received several similar letters.
Anyway, I digress - my point is - is this what the makers of Candy Crush Saga are now going to do? Because it certainly seems to be the case from early indications.
The fact that they have been allowed to trademark the word 'Candy' is ridiculous. As is the fact that they are trying to trademark the word 'Saga'.
The word Candy - although American in origin - has been used for many many years in product names and more recently gaming - in fact there are games mentioning that particular word that have been around for 10 years or more, and other brands far longer.
Along comes this upstart - yes a ridiculously successful upstart - and starts demanding that they take the word Candy out of their brand titles.
Nobody should own the rights to this word - it is a universally used word and features in the branding of many well known products - Skull Candy is one brand that springs to mind. Does this mean those walking stick-shaped Christmas sweets can no longer be called Candy Canes? They have been around for decades.
Whoever allowed this ridiculous outcome should definitely be made to explain the logic behind it. By all means trademark Candy Crush (I can't see that anyone else would want it anyway to be fair) but not the word Candy.
I hope someone fights them all the way over this ridiculous situation and those brands that feature the word Candy, refuse point blank to remove it.
I am extremely glad I never played the game once or got sucked in through friends challenging me to play on Facebook.
So just for this article I'm going to say that I work on Candy Reseller News. Candy, Candy, Candy.