After a lengthy legal battle, the publisher responsible for megahit Candy Crush Saga has decided to settle out of court with one of the companies it has accused of cloning its games.
6Waves will remove Treasure Epic and Farm Epic from the Web as part of the out-of-court agreement it has reached with King. Treasure Epic is a block-matching puzzler, and Farm Epic has you matching produce like corn and tomatoes. In its filling with the U.S. District Court of Northern California, King alleged that Farm Epic infringed on its Farm Heroes Saga on Facebook and mobile while Treasure Epic illegally used assets that are nearly indistinguishable from King’s Pet Rescue Saga. In addition to taking those games offline, 6Waves will pay King an undisclosed amount.
Last summer, King filed a suit against 6Waves. The Candy Crush Saga company claimed that the look and name of 6Waves’ games came too close to its own. In April, the U.S. court agreed to hear the case. This came after 6Waves, a Chinese company, failed to get the jurisdiction of the case shifted to Beijing. A Chinese court likely would have thrown the case out because they tend to favor companies in its countries and the nation’s legal system does not have a strong history of protecting intellectual property.
King hasn’t shied away from using legal means to protect its properties in the past. Earlier this year, King filed paperwork with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to own the word “Candy” in regards to digital entertainment. It has previously secured the word “Saga” in both the U.S. and Europe. It even used these trademarks to go after unrelated products like The Banner Saga, which is a PC role-playing fantasy game that few potential King customers would mistake for Candy Crush Saga — although, King eventually dropped its trademark claim against that title.
With a U.S. suit incoming, 6Waves decided not to take its chances in court. As you can see in the image above, Treasure Epic does have many similarities to Pet Rescue Saga. King also would have likely argued that 6Waves’ use of the term “Epic” in the names of its games was a deliberate attempt to confuse the market and capitalize on the branding and popularity of King’s “Saga” suffix.
GamesBeat asked King and 6Waves for comment. King declined to comment. It instead pointed us toward its public blog.
“We are pleased that this matter has now been resolved,” King chief legal officer Robert Miller said in a statement. “We believe in a thriving game-development community based on fair competition. However, this was a case where another company sought to take advantage of the hard work and creativity of two of our games teams. In such circumstances, we will always look to vigorously enforce our rights.”