FLAPPY Trademark Battle
Dong Nguyen, the creator of the addictive Flappy Bird game, now has more to worry about than complaints for removing Flappy Bird from the Apple App Store. Last week, Ultimate Arcade, Inc. issued a press release stating that they are the original creators of FLAPPY, a flapping bird game strikingly similar to Flappy Bird. The company recently applied to register the trademark because of Flappy Bird’s success and the subsequent clone games. However, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office will need to determine who in fact owns the FLAPPY trademark. Nevertheless, Ultimate Arcade, Inc. intends to continue using its common law trademark and has asked Flappy clone games to “remove FLAPPY from their titles, metadata, keywords and descriptions.” Though no lawsuit has been initiated, Ultimate Arcade, Inc. seems to have a compelling trademark infringement claim against Dong Nguyen and Flappy Bird.
