Here is one coming right out of the Apple/LucasArts/Twitter books. Lima Sky, the developers of Doodle Jump for Android and iOS, are actively pursuing developers who use the word ‘Doodle’ in their game title as a Trademark violation and to change their names or action will be taken against them.
According to PocketGamer, there are 730 applications on the App store and lord knows how many on the Android Market that have the word ‘Doodle’ in the title.
Lima Sky holds the Trademark for their game’s name, Doodle Jump, but actually doesn’t own the rights to the word Doodle unlike LucasArts who own the rights to the word ‘Droid’ or Twitter who recently made LevelUp studios change the name of their Twitter app from Touiteur to something else because it was basically Twitter spelled wrong.
Unlike previous cases where something similar has happened, this time it seems developers are planning to fight back. One developer who made the game Doodle Hockey (for iOS) is fighting back and is encouraging all developers to team up to fight what Lima Sky is doing. There are some big games out there on the Android Market, not all made by small companies either. Doodle Bowling is published by Game House who are rather large, so if Lima Sky really wants to pursue this, they may have quite the fight on their hands.
On a side note, I’ve now registered the words “the”, “and”, “but”, “is”, “red”, “coffee” and “game”. Everyone owes me an ass load of money now.
Website Referenced: PocketGamer
