Zynga suing "Bang With Friends" developers for trademark infringement

[wickedplayer494]

[url]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-31/zynga-sues-casual-sex-app-over-trademark-infringement.html[/url]

[quote=Bloomberg]Zynga Inc. sued the maker of the “Bang With Friends” casual sex Internet application over claims it infringes Zynga’s trademark for its “with friends” family of games.
Bang With Friends Inc., the maker of the application with the same name for matching Facebook friends anonymously for casual sex, registered its Internet domain name last year, according to the complaint filed yesterday federal court in San Francisco.[/quote]

[Foxton]

I wanna bang some of my friends I want this app

[hl2poo]

I wish I had friends to bang.

[Archangel125]

They trademarked 'With Friends'? The fuck is wrong with the copyright office?

[elix]

They lost something like 13 million active users in their last quarter (that's roughly 100,000 people [I]a day[/I] choosing to stop touching Zynga software). They've gotta make money somehow.

[I]David Attenborough voice:[/I] Now the dotcom writhes and lashes out as its death throes become more desperate and panicked.

[Period]

Looks like Zynga's getting desperate.

[TheJoey]

rip off scrabble completely, even release words with friends board game

sue someone for having a title with "with friends" in it

stay classy zynga

[Awesomecaek]

I have never heard of any "with friends" apps done by Zynga, and the attacked application sounds more interesting than anything Zynga has ever did.

[Amez]

I feel like we're going to see a lot of stuff like this over the duration of time it takes for Zynga to crumble.

[TurboSax]

Oh, the irony.

Remember kids, stealing game ideas from other developers with literally no changes save for cosmetics and your name in the credits is perfectly alright, unless it happens to [B]you[/B].

[Zeke129]

If you don't protect your trademark you lose it

let's all put our cocks away before the circlejerk starts a flood

[ewitwins]

[QUOTE=Foxton;41656771]I wanna bang some of my friends I want this app[/QUOTE]

It's bloody well useless because hardly anybody knows about it :v:

And if you suggest it to someone they'll automatically check if you requested them, which... leads to other kinds of embarrassments.

[Kljunas]

[QUOTE=Zeke129;41657674]If you don't protect your trademark you lose it

let's all put our cocks away before the circlejerk starts a flood[/QUOTE]

I personally have no problem with companies protecting their trademarks. The problem is companies being allowed to trademark stupid generic things like rounded corners or the phrase 'with friends'.

[KILLTHIS]

[QUOTE=hl2poo;41656775]I wish I had friends to bang.[/QUOTE]
>tfw no friends to bang

Sorry, just had to do that.

Anyways: Since when can you sue someone over "with friends"?

[Awesomecaek]

[QUOTE=Zeke129;41657674]If you don't protect your trademark you lose it

let's all put our cocks away before the circlejerk starts a flood[/QUOTE]

They shouldn't have ever attempted to nor been allowed to claim the trademark.

[Demeschik]

So they trademarked "With Friends", let's trademark "With" and countersue. Feels like I know as much about the thing as their lawyers.

[MisterSjeiks]

finally a reason to make a facebook account

[catbarf]

[QUOTE=archangel125;41656873]They trademarked 'With Friends'? The fuck is wrong with the copyright office?[/QUOTE]

They didn't trademark 'with friends'. They trademarked a specific use of the phrase consistent with their advertising campaign, which in this case was pretty clearly being used as derivative advertising.

Subway trademarked 'eat fresh'. I don't see anyone in uproar, claiming they'll get sued because they said 'eat fresh vegetables as part of a healthy diet'. You might get sued if you wrote a book called 'Facepunch For Dummies', because 'for dummies' is a recognizable trademark of an existing brand. It doesn't mean you can never use the words 'eat fresh' or 'for dummies' in general conversation, it only means you can't use them as a marketing campaign that would cause a reasonable person to confuse your product with that of the people you're ripping off.

It's not about the exact words, it's about how they're used. An app with the name '[X] With Friends' is probably riding on Zynga's coattails.

[Damoman]

I hope nimblebit writes Zyngea another "heartfelt" condolences letter.

[nick_9_8]

Incoming moaning about nobody on FP bangs with friends.