Apple is sending notices to several developers asking them to remove or rename Apps that have 'Memory' in their titles.
The notices are coming at the request of German company Ravensburger, which claims to hold trademark for the word in several European countries, where it sells a very popular board game simply titled "Memory."
Gamasutra has received confirmation from two separate App developers about the notices, though neither Ravensburger nor Apple have responded to our requests for commentary.
Darren Murtha, half of the duo behind the popular Preschool Memory Match, tells us that he was forced to remove it from all 42 countries, as he's too busy working on another app to re-submit this one with a new name.
"We plan on changing the name in those countries and uploading a new version early next year," he tells us by email.
The news could be a headache for quite a few developers: a cursory glance through the United States App Store shows over 50 games with "Memory" in their titles, most of them card-matching memory games similar to Memory.
And though Ravensburger's trademark doesn't extend to the United States, it is an easy assumption that many of these Apps have international versions available.
The countries in which Ravensburger claims to hold the trademark, according to the Apple notice that one developer forwarded to us, are as follows: Armenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Equador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela.
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Ravensburger is 130 years old. I don't know where in that timeframe they first published Memory, but at that age I wouldn't presuppose they didn't coin or popularize the name.
Trademarks never automatically enter the public domain; they last as long as you keep using them in trade; and another party can re-trademark something after you've abandoned it, if they are using it in trade. It's possible "Memory" may be diluted, but dilution is a fairly intricate matter to decide. It's quite possible that via rigorous cross-licensing and diligent enforcement notices they have managed to avoid that.
Ravensburger started selling Memory in 1959.
The context where the word is found in is important to take into consideration as well. When you have an English-language game with an English-language name, the "memory" part of the name won't appear to be any more special than any of the other English words used in the name, even from the from the perspective of someone who's not a native English speaker.
I guess I could somewhat understand this if the other games were card based/board games, but they're video games which should hold no crossover trademark infringement. Especially for a commonly used phrase.
Seriously though, entire genres and vague one word names should not be copyright-able. Its called 'Magic: The Gathering' because 'Magic' could not have been copyrighted or owned. Sorry but the guys at Ravensburger werent the first people to use the word 'memory'.
They should make iOS take down every game with the word burger in it too. Lets see how far we can take this patent trolling!
Probably it wasn't called "Magic" because trademarks for e.g. "Magic Card" already existed - http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:2hd3au.6.20 . Or just because someone decided that wasn't a distinctive enough mark from a marketing perspective, since it would've been confused with a dozen generic card tricks.
There's no patents involved here, and no copyrights. Please just try to be informed for a change.
I agree this is all getting ridiculous and silly. So apple app developers now have to do trademark searches for Estonia now? wtf?
If you want to sell to Estonians, why is this an undue burden?
Probably already a product but looks like someone could publish a dictionary of trademarked words. The guy/girl who decides to create a game called "memory scroll edge" is in for a world of hurt.
Uno is another example. But in this case it's an Italian word ("one"), no right-minded English native speaker would claim that a trademark dispute over an Uno-like game that is called "Preschool Uno Match" is nonsense.
As a developer you have to face the truth that globally selling games bears some risks and that a quick search at http://www.wipo.int/romarin does not hurt.
It is pretty neo-racist/culturalist to ignore the fact that in other languages English words might be foreign words (just like david canela describes) and can be trademarked.
Or are you saying I should be able to open a studio named "Valve" and publish a game called "Halo"? They're just single English words!
Ravensburger may be overreaching here - going after the "memory" keyword, if true, is pretty harsh - but the reaction of most Gamasutra commenters is ridiculous. Ravensburger isn't a NPE; having an exclusive game title is not a strange idea; and just because something is older than you doesn't mean you can ignore it.
When valve, blizzard or fable become genericized in gaming, then we can talk.
Like I said above, this is a matter for a legal system to decide. You have no idea what kind of contracts and agreements may exist regarding this, or how often they have enforced it before, especially in countries that do not speak English. Trademark dilution is a tricky issue and "everyone I know calls it 'memory'" is *not* sufficient grounds to show it exists.
Also it sounds like apple sent the email too broadly. I actually get that memory+game type = bad mojo.
But it seems like we're seeing too big a brush too often.
It's very rare to see a spurious use of trademarks. They are forceful but also very narrow. There are "trademark trolls" but unlike patent trolls they rarely meet with any success[1], and Ravensburger - a company that has probably done more for enshrining games and play in modern culture than the entire videogame industry put together - certainly does not qualify.
[1] The exception is within DNS registration, which is a problem, but isn't relevant here.
I'm not 'blaming' bethesda in the scrolls example, you have to 'protect' your rights by showing an active defense. I just wish the 'active defense' was more along the lines of 'Your game name is has the appearance of infringingly close to our copyright/trademark. However on review we have determined that it does not.' Demonstrating that they are interested in defending their trademark but not spuriously.
The clue website case and one or two others, plus the patent and other cease and desist letters lead to the knee jerk reaction -especially since you have limits on game mechanics that you can protect and much of the digital gamedev community resists ANY attempt to do so unless it is blatant- and even then I know many people were bummed the dragonballz quake mod was cease and desisted.
I've hinted elsewhere that I think they have more of a case than I originally 'kneejerk' thought- not without knowing when the game 'memory' came into existence since the card game I grew up with is commonly called memory. Did this company invent it or did they just trademark a rendition of it? Were they the first to call it 'Memory'? They can realistically file this and it is unlikely anyone will challenge them. They also can't stop other games from using 'memory' in their titles if the game isn't a concentration matching game (I think Apple was probably to blame for the carpet bombing here).
In any case, I would consider filing a class action against them for harassment or some such. Especially threatening takedowns over keywords/meta-data.
Also, unless something has changed, you can't change keywords for an existing App. You have to submit a new build, and sadly, we don't have the resources to update an older game while we are working on a new one.
Since I mentioned it before I went to check it out, and you're right - keywords are the only thing on the Version Details you can't seem to edit after the app goes live! That's nuts.
While patent trolling is especially in US out of control, trademark defense is essential to the concept of trademarks. I don't get why everybody is so upset about this.
Even protecting a word, strange, but OK.
But as Michael Rooney asks, how can it make practical sense as a legal restriction that compound titles may not contain any protected word?
If I sell a game whose complete title is "Scrolls: The Edge of Memory," that's at least four opportunities for someone to sic their legal hounds on me. Why? That's unnecessarily complicating commerce today (translation: needlessly raising product costs and potentially eliminating some products altogether), and it's only going to get worse if compound titles are not treated as unique.
Look forward to a future where game titles will all be something like "Skrflgnchk." (Apologies to anyone who's already trademarked the word "Skrflgnchk.")
If Ravensburger gave its "Memory" game another name, for example "Memor", I am sure many developers would try to use the name "Memor" as keyword or title element to refer to the game type (to profit from Ravensburger's efforts). This is what it is all about. There are many trademarks that are used in everyday language to refer to a category of products. Using these trademarks in your product description/title/etc. is risky.
I think "Scrolls: The Edge of Memory" may lead to trademark disputes, especially when you name your RPG game in this way. "Elder" and "Edge" look very similar. When this game contains a major Memory gameplay element it might also infringe on the Memory trademark.
When you want to create a new trademark, that contains other trademarks in the name, just ensure it is not the same product category and does not contain conceptual references to these trademarks. (Plain use of trademarks in other product categories is of course also problematic, because it can lead to Trademark dilution, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_dilution)
Bottom line, if you want to be safe, do a quick research, or better yet, pay an expert to do it. And you're more likely to be safe with fantasy words like Skyrim, than words of any language, especially English, and the more descriptive it gets of genre or product type.
That's just brilliant.
(Cept apple)- Compound game titles should really be a valid solution, especially since most buyers are already immune to them and know the difference.
By the way I think Lego means something in Spanish (unintentional), Uno is the Italian word for one and I am sure there are many other brands in English speaking countries that mean something in another language of this world.
I think every country in which a word mark means something has the right to refuse it as a protected trademark. It is a dilemma, because it builds up barriers of communication on one hand and on the other it simplifies the trademark registration process in each country (which was especially in times of non-global markets a very good reason).
I don't think this dilemma is wrongful, but a valid builtin conflict, when it comes to globalization. I don't think you can solve this dilemma easily and it is a matter of respect for other cultures to not ignore strong foreign trademarks, which don't suit your plans. I don't like the fact, that small developers, who naturally go global via easily accessable global markets, are sometimes threatened by big foreign trademarks, but I think it is a valid rightful process, especially when the trademark is very strong in many countries.
The solution for this problem is definitely not a simple "just ignore all word marks that are part of my language in global markets". In times of a strong global communication network I think only combined trademarks (word+logo and/or sound) should be valid in a global context. Meanwhile we have to live with some legal risks when publishing a game on global markets out of respect for foreign cultures.
Remember the trademark is primarily registered in non-english speaking countries and is not registered in the US! You can create as much games called "Memory" in the US as you want. You will get some problems when you market it with this name globally.
Companies should not be punished when they find a very good name for their product.
It is well defined how these "very good names" are handled by law in US (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark ).
"Companies should not be punished when they find a very good name for their product."
Really? You mean, unless some random other company half way across the globe has applied a patent to A word in the title. At which point you should be legally forced to remove that name......forever from anywhere that company has touched.
Well congratulations on patenting the word "memory"'s use in any memory game's title. I think it stifles communication, creativity and is morally uncouth. Apparently you seem to think it is perfectly legal, and who can afford to argue? Kudos!!!!
No, only when it comes to really strong trademarks. Which is definitely the case, when it comes to "Memory".
The problem is dealing with multiple cultures and legislations at once. This will always be a risk for global market providers like Apple or Steam and sometimes a risk for the people who publish on these markets. Such a risk is a direct result of dealing with global markets and this risk is per se not wrong in a tolerant non-culturalist world.
We have to wait or fight for global legislation in these cases. Since the internet is still very young as an easily accessable global market place, it is only natural that there is lack of global consent. Trademarks are only the tip of the iceberg, just think of youth protection laws etc.
PS: Pairs or Remember are also good names for Memory.