They are clearly NOT the inventors of the Tower Defense Genre (they trademarked it in 2008). Ther phrase actually goes back to Command & Conquer times and the well known “Art of Defense” Style Maps. So there is no true inventor of that phrase.
Also, it is a descriptive phrase. It is also mentioned in wikipedia and what they do try now is to get a legal foot to eliminate every other tower defense game in the market by just registering it as a trademark. In europe that is clearly a “unethical competition” by law, but I just have no interest in sueing com2us for being stupid. Mainly I would blame the trademark offices in the first place, because THEY should avoid such stupid trademarking in the first place.
I think even google play has a category named Tower Defense … ? Every review website has such a category. com2us has registered “Tower Defense” for use with “Game Software and relevant goods” so that will count for EVERY game software, not only mobile devices. So they now have access to sue half the world. Personally I hope, they sue the wrong guy and get a hammer on their head, wiping them away from the market. Such politics are unacceptable. Give them what they deserve.
For me, they sent me Screenshots of my Teaser graphics and complained about the game tile, the usage of the words “tower defense” (which is also part of my graphics).
To not give them any chance to sue me, I’ve already changed game title, game graphics and updated on google play and will do so for other markets as well. So they do not have any single chance to sue me. I have just no interest in playing within such a fools game.
The game now is titled “HexDef One” with a long subtitle, which is very generic, maybe some people will be bad with me, but really I don’t care. I have neither the time not the resources to join childish plays with people on the trademark-playground.
So, if com2us will be wiped away, I will laugh at them because they deserve it.
@Solirify: No, actually you CANT trademark a genre. But at the trademark office, they do not care, because they do not know or investigate if it is a genre. They just don’t know. So people can happily register everything until the point they get sued by anyone. So I hope someone will sue them.
Can I sue someone just for beinging an idiot? (general question g)