King accused of Candy Crush Saga IP theft

In a dramatic twist to the Candy Crush Saga saga, an indie dev has accused King of stealing the idea for its IP in the first place.

CVG reports that Albert Ransom, the creator of 2010 title CandySwipe, has been told by authorities that he may have to cancel the name of his own title, even though it predates King’s game by two years.

He alleges that King has dodged his own trademark through the acquisition of another game – Candy Crusher – which was released even earlier.

Congratulations! You win,” Ransom wrote in an open letter. I created my game CandySwipe in memory of my late mother who passed away at an early age of 62 of leukemia. I released CandySwipe in 2010 five months after she passed and I made it because she always liked these sorts of games.

Two years after I released CandySwipe, you released Candy Crush Saga on mobile; the app icon, candy pieces, and even the rewarding, ‘Sweet!’ are nearly identical. So much so, that I have hundreds of instances of actual confusion from users who think CandySwipe is Candy Crush Saga, or that CandySwipe is a Candy Crush Saga knockoff.

So when you attempted to register your trademark in 2012, I opposed it for ‘likelihood of confusion’ (which is within my legal right) given I filed for my registered trademark back in 2010. Now, after quietly battling this trademark opposition for a year, I have learned that you now want to cancel my CandySwipe trademark so that I don’t have the right to use my own game’s name.

Good for you, you win. I hope you’re happy taking the food out of my family’s mouth when CandySwipe clearly existed well before Candy Crush Saga.

I have spent over three years working on this game as an independent app developer. I learned how to code on my own after my mother passed and CandySwipe was my first and most successful game; it’s my livelihood, and you are now attempting to take that away from me.”