Thursday, September 9, 2010

Trademark Wars - Part 3: It's Not All Fun and Games With Online Games

What's in a name? I've been asking that question for almost thirty years and it never gets old. Great names and trademarks make for great businesses. Just ask GOOGLE, YAHOO, MRS. FIELDS, GREYHOUND, APPLE, and countless others.

But naming is often harder than it looks and often not pretty. Right now Zynga - home of the popular Internet game site FARMVILLE - is locked in an expensive legal battle with a company called Digital Chocolate over who owns the rights to the trademark MAFIA WARS for an online game, etc. Here is an article about the lawsuit filed by Digital Chocolate against Zynga in which Digital Chocolate claims that Zynga has stolen the MAFIA WARS trademark. If you are really ambitious, there is a link in the article to the actual complaint filed by Digital Chocolate that started the lawsuit.

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