"Tower Defense" is now up for CP Infringement

I've been down this road and let me give you a little advice... 1. Contact Com2uS. 2. Work out a mutual agreement. 3. Contact Apple and tell them you have worked out an agreement.

That is the best you can hope for even though you are 100% right in the matter... Resolve it outside of Apple and let Apple know it was resolved.

Cheers,
Todd

 

Talked to Com2uS, they just told me to leave it alone - their legal people will sort things out if a dispute ever happens, and that slashandburn should probably just avoid the hassle and change the name.

 

That didn't seem to stop someone from trademarking Tower Defense in 2007 and then enforcing that mark even though it was already widely in use prior to 2007. If no one fights it to overturn the mark, their case for the mark will only get stronger.

 

Word of warning about your keywords; separate tower and defense, I.e put other keywords between them otherwise it'll be flagged.

 

It seems ridiculous changing it to "TD"

That's certainly not a term anyone's going to search for. May as well remove it altogether, or rename the game completely.

How many PC or console games have their genre in the title?

 

Another developer's reputation being slowly flushed away. Maybe I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were just too stupid to realize just how common the term was in regards to being a genre.

 

I agree. The best time to fight the mark was when it was being considered. However, for the next 5 years it is still weak, and certainly anyone who was using the mark before they filed for the mark can continue using it. However, anyone who started using it after they filed would be risking legal action. If I were in this position, I would go ahead and file a trademark app for the full name of my app that included the 'Tower Defense' part, disclaiming a mark on 'Tower Defense' by itself.

 

ok, this is absolutely crazy, crazy, crazy. Anyone who gets their 'tower' and 'defense' keywords rejected should post here and also immediately contest this with Apple. Just because you succeed in getting a trademark on a genre of games doesn't give you any rights to the terms separately. Even so, using the descriptive term "tower defense" all together is an absolutely fine keyword. It's not your fault that someone spent money to register a common genre of games.

 

Perhaps I should have been more clear as to why this may be flagged - it wasn't a random suggestion:

An update for Sentinel 2 was rejected this week because of this. However, we came to a quick agreement of amending the order of the keywords (whilst expressing our surprise at it even being noticed) - and were successful in it being approved.

 

So you got a notice saying "it would be appropriate to remove these offending keywords" and then you didn't, but just moved them around, and everything was ok the 2nd time? I've heard of the same thing happening, so I'm not surprised. However, I've also heard of rejections even when the two words were separated, so I'm not sure why the word shuffle made a difference unless your keyword list is automatically compared with a list of trademarked words from companies who have put Apple on notice. I don't think any app name will trigger a keyword warning.

 

Hm, if by filing a new mark containing Tower Defense can disclaim the old mark, then it's a fairly inexpensive way to do it. It only costs $325 to file an intend to use mark with the USPTO. But if they don't approve of new mark, the filer loses out on the fee. Or if USPTO approves of the new mark and doesn't invalidate the old mark, then we're back at exactly where we are now.

I don't have a pony in this race, but this whole thing just rubs me the wrong way.

 

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The new mark would not cause the old mark to be invalid. I meant to say that when registering the new mark, you would put in language to say you explicitly DON'T claim a trademark on just the words "Tower Defense", but only the full trademark "Pumpkin Smash Tower Defense", or whatever. Then, the owner of the "Tower Defense" trademark would have to object or your would get a trademark for your name. During the objection process, they would likely loose their trademark on "Tower Defense", or would just give it up, especially if everyone with "Tower Defense" in their name applied for a trademark. Or maybe they would win and everyone would have to change "Tower Defense" to something else, but I don't think so because when something rubs you the wrong way, it rubs other people the wrong way also.

 

So you already have a new phrase? This thing is making me angry... EDGE... now Tower Defense... Try what IMAK said. Register your whole app name, see what com2us does...

 

how about not writing more tower defense apps? genre is flooded.

 

Don't you dare, that'd just lead to an increase of Match-3 games!

 

Make a TD game and name it "Best Match-3 Ever" (which would be true [I hate most Match-3 games and I am a TD fan ] )