King Talk about Intellectual Property, Cloning and Those Trademarks

In an open letter King have spoken about their stance on intellectual property and those controversial trademarks. After being trolled by the internet at large they have decided to give their side of the story.

They talk in depth about the issues they face. You can read the letter in full on their website but below are some of the comments on key issues they have come under fire for.

They start off by making a sweeping statement about protecting their intellectual property.

Like any responsible company, we take appropriate steps to protect our IP, including our look-and-feel and trademarks. Our goals are simple: to ensure that our employees’ hard work is not simply copied elsewhere, that we avoid player confusion and that the integrity of our brands remains.

- King, Open Letter

The first issue discussed is the debate which revolves around Pac-Avoid, which was released nearly five years ago. The game strongly resembles another game called ScamperGhost. King state that they never should have published Pac-Avoid and have since taken the game down from their site. They also make the following claim.

Before we launch any game, we do a thorough search of other games in the marketplace and review relevant trademark filings to ensure that we are not infringing anyone else’s IP. We have launched hundreds of games. Occasionally, we get things wrong. When we do, we take appropriate action.

- King, Open Letter

The next issue they tackle is the trademarking issue. King state that this is not an unusual thing and again stress that it is simply to try and prevent others capitalising on their success.

The truth is that there is nothing very unusual about trademarking a common word for specific uses. Think of “Time”, “Money” “Fortune”, “Apple”, and “Sun”, to name a few. We are not trying to control the world’s use of the word “Candy;” having a trade mark doesn’t allow us to do that anyway. We’re just trying to prevent others from creating games that unfairly capitalise on our success.

- King, Open Letter

Regarding their lawsuit against Stoic they say specifically that they do not believe The Banner Saga bears any resemblance to their games but have to protect themselves as they believe the word saga is key to their branding.

We’re not trying to stop Stoic from using the word Saga but we had to oppose their application to preserve our own ability to protect our own games.  Otherwise, it would be much easier for future copycats to argue that use of the word “Saga” when related to games, was fair play.

-King, Open Letter

They finish by inviting people to talk to them about these issues.

We think discussion and debate on these issues is a positive thing. We welcome comments on everything we do from inside and outside the company. We regularly discuss and review our approach and will continue to do so going forward. Above all, if anyone has a complaint about how we implement our policies, we will investigate that complaint promptly and fairly.

- King, Open Letter

Given the scale of the backlash against them ending by giving out a contact email address with the words “please feel free to drop me a line” may have been a mistake. Time will tell.