Throughout the ’70s and early ’80s, Atari was on top of the video game world, but it has not produced any new games in years. These days, the technology company makes more money enforcing its intellectual property profile. And now, it will go before the USPTO in defense of the phrase, “Haunted House,” the name of a game Atari released in 1982 and a phrase found within the title of a game that Hazy Dreams is currently creating. In 2011, Hazy Dreams filed for trademark protection over its newest game’s title, “Haunted House Tycoon.” But Atari argued that its game, which received trademark protection 2010, had become “well-known among the public and the trade” due to “widespread and extensive use.”

Atari does appear to be more than a “trademark troll” in this matter. It argued that the trademark application in 2010 was related to its deal to license games through Microsoft’s Game Room service, which also started in 2010. It also created a 2010 remake of the game, which is available for download through Windows. Hazy Dreams, of course, argues that the phrase “Haunted House” is too generic to ever preclude any other game from using the phrase again.

“Trying to claim no one else can use the words ‘Haunted’ and ‘House’ is especially ridiculous, considering games have been using the term ‘Haunted House” in titles ever since Magnavox released a game by that name for the Odyssey in 1972,” defendant Andrew Greenberg, defendant and Hazy Dreams founder, said in a statement.

As one commentator noted, Atari’s case is another example of gaming developers attempting to protect phrases or even words that, on the surface, do not appear very distinctive. King Games, which created the popular mobile game “Candy Crush Saga,” attempted to trademark the word “candy” before receiving negative publicity and retracting the request. Bethesda and Mojang settled over use of the word “scrolls.” And Ubisoft and EA also recently litigated over a trademark for the word “ghost.”

Sources: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160420/10073234222/ex-game-maker-atari-to-argue-to-us-pto-that-only-it-can-make-haunted-house-games.shtml http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/18/ataris-haunted-house-trademark-dispute-to-go-in-front-of-regulators-this-week/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/atari-still-exists-thinks-no-one-else-can-make-a-haunted-house-game/

For more information on this topic, please visit our Trademark Management service page, which is part of our Trademarks practice.

Klemchuk LLP is an Intellectual Property (IP), Technology, Internet, and Business law firm located in Dallas, TX. The firm offers comprehensive legal services including litigation and enforcement of all forms of IP as well as registration and licensing of patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights. The firm also provides a wide range of technology, Internet, e-commerce, and business services including business planning, formation, and financing, mergers and acquisitions, business litigation, data privacy, and domain name dispute resolution. Additional information about the trademark law firm and its trademark attorneys may be found at www.klemchuk.com.

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