{"id":11790,"date":"2012-05-08T01:17:41","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T23:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=11790"},"modified":"2012-05-08T10:36:25","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T08:36:25","slug":"farmville-developer-sues-for-copyright-infringement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/11790\/farmville-developer-sues-for-copyright-infringement\/","title":{"rendered":"FarmVille developer sues for copyright infringement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zynga Inc<\/a>, the publisher of popular games on Facebook<\/a> like “FarmVille” and “CityVille,” accused French game publisher Kobojo of trademark infringement, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

Zynga’s complaint, filed in federal court in San Francisco on Friday, is centered around PyramidVille, a game title released by Kobojo on Facebook in early 2011.<\/p>\n

“Facebook users are likely to believe, erroneously, that PYRAMIDVILLE is a member of Zynga’s ‘VILLE Family of Games,” Zynga said in its complaint.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit comes as Zynga’s effort to secure a trademark for the word “Ville” has stalled in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.<\/p>\n

Although Zynga does not hold a trademark for the word “Ville,” the company said in its complaint that it has “consistently promoted the ‘VILLE Family of Games together as a family, identified by the distinctive ‘VILLE suffix.”<\/p>\n

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of trademark battles for the San Francisco social gaming company, which has been locked in a similar spat with Blingville, the creator of an eponymous Facebook game.<\/p>\n

“Zynga’s “Ville” family includes many well-known games, including FarmVille, CityVille and CastleVille, and the “Ville” suffix is strongly associated by gamers with Zynga,” Zynga said in a statement Monday. “Given Kojobo’s refusal to change their game name, legal action was necessary to defend our famous marks and prevent player confusion.”<\/p>\n

In recent years, Zynga has gained millions of users who pay to play its “‘Ville” suite of resource-management games, which feature similar game mechanics but different themes. The company has continued to roll out new additions to the series to sustain interest from users on the ultra-competitive Facebook platform.<\/p>\n

Zynga has asked for damages of three times the profit that Kobojo earns from PyramidVille.<\/p>\n

Kobojo could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Kobojo, founded in 2008, received roughly $7.5 million in funding from European venture capital firms last year. The game publisher was also part of a global startup accelerator program backed by Microsoft Corp<\/a>, although Microsoft does not own a stake in the company.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

EA CEO: \u201cZynga has lapped us three times\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Zynga acquires OMGPOP, back on top of Facebook<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Zynga launches its own gaming platform<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Zynga accused of more copying<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zynga Inc, the publisher of popular games on Facebook like “FarmVille” and “CityVille,” accused French game publisher Kobojo of trademark infringement, according to court documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":11791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[25,2690,2689,2680,2691,1302],"class_list":["post-11790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-active","tag-cityville","tag-farmville","tag-gaming","tag-kobojo","tag-zynga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11790"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11852,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11790\/revisions\/11852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}