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Conflict between game names

A topic by SupremeStudio created 31 days ago Views: 102 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 3

So it started when my friend told me about a game on itch i ask for the name to search for it but when i  search for it i got multiple games with the same exact name from multiple creators as a result i got confuse witch one my friend was telling me about intel i asked for the link.

Let's just say someone was looking for my game them the result lead him to another game with the same name as mine(it could be a malicious malware, Broken game, etc.) So i want to know how to avoid this problem in the future(Well assuming my game go viral)

The correct and formal solution.

Register the name of your game as a trademark (you must first check that the name you want to use does not exist).

If another game uses your name, hire a lawyer to send a cease and desist letter to its creators, and perhaps a DMCA to Itch to get the game taken down. However, you may need to go to court if the creator believes your claim is incorrect.

By the way, doing all this does not guarantee that you will win the trial, since this depends on several factors.

Aren't you a large company with a large marketing budget and a legal department?

DO NOT choose generic names or names inspired by generic elements, maybe "zombie operator" sounds cool to you, but it is a generic name that thousands of developers will also think is cool and will name their games that way (And surely , many have done it before you even thought about it, that is, strictly speaking, if those people have registered the name, it is possible that you cannot use it). Furthermore, since they are generic words, it is difficult to register them.

i get your point but my current low budget won't allow that ;)

if i got a DMCA from someone register as a trade mark can i change the name instead of itch take down the game?

dmca is not for trademarks. it is for copyright. names are not copyrightable.

If you do infringe on a trademark, the owner of that brand might try to send you a nasty cease and desist letter to which you could probably change the name of the game or whatever violated the brand.

Something like this happened to Sandtrix. Maybe you find the story on their discord or in the interwebs. https://mslivo.itch.io/sandtrix

Oh, and that Tetris company does not actually have the trademark to the name Tetris. There are literally hundreds of games by that name here on itch. They do however have some rights to a strange combination of markings, including music.

I highly doubt that anyone has or could get the trademark to the name of your current game. Including you. Your studio name is probalby not trademarkable either.

You need more than a name to register a trademark. 

I suggest you read this article to shed a little bit of light on this with real world examples https://newtech.law/en/the-name-of-the-game-video-game-titles-and-trademark-prot...

Generally speaking, names are not protected as such. People and things can have the same name.

But you can protect a brand name. And you can make a game name a brand name - within a given context. And usually you need special things added to the name, so the name becomes an actual logo, complete with graphics. Like "Apple" needs that bitten fruit.

The thing is, these laws are made for a specific purpose, but are often misused. That purpose is to protect a brand. So someone buying a product, would not confuse the competitor brand with your brand. This concept is better understandable for soap and other physical goods.

Also there is the prior usage problem and the scope of the protection, as it is is made for specific markets where you have to register it separatly.

For most indie games this is a non issue. If you are so big that you have to worry about merchandise and trademark branding, you also have you own legal department or at least a publisher that knows this stuff. You just might want to make sure, that the game you develop is not treading on any established brands. Which is very, very hard, if you have a generic or descriptive name.

You immediatly knew that the games you searched and found were not the game you were looking for. So it is evident, that the name alone is not the deciding factor here and a mere trademark would not have helped nor would have been necessary to "protect" the original game from knock-off games, trying to cash in on the similar or even same name.

So i want to know how to avoid this problem in the future(Well assuming my game go viral)

The problem being that someone would search for zombie and not find your game? If you do go viral, it will not matter. Search engines will put relevance on your game by the title words. Even the itch suggestion searchbox will. 

Type neigh for example. It already will show you a currently popular game, even though it is an everyday word.