Candy Crush dev not trying to stop The Banner Saga from using its name

Candy Crush Saga developer King is apparently not trying to force Stoic Studio to change the name of its recently released game, The Banner Saga. Not even a day after King trademarked the word "Candy," it was discovered that the developer had also filed a trademark claim against Stoic over the common use of the word "Saga" in the titles of their products.

The document was reportedly filed on December 27, 2013, and expresses King's belief that it would be "damaged" by Stoic's The Banner Saga trademark, which was applied for in July, 2013. With every trademark application in the U.S. open for a period of opposition, King had until December 29th to make its case.

The document states that, "The Banner Saga mark is confusingly and deceptively similar to Opposer's {King's] previously used Saga marks." It goes on to argue that Stoic's game is similar enough in terms of content, and will be marketed and sold through similar enough channels, for "customers and potential customers" to confuse the product's origins, "resulting in a likelihood of confusion in the marketplace and damage to [King]."

Responding to the issue, a King spokesperson told GamesIndustry "King has not and is not trying to stop Banner Saga from using its name. We do not have any concerns that Banner Saga is trying build on our brand or our content."

"However, like any prudent company, we need to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP, both now and in the future," the spokesperson stated.

Defending their initial opposition, the spokesperson added, "In this case, that means preserving our ability to enforce our rights in cases where other developers may try to use the Saga mark in a way which infringes our IP rights and causes player confusion. If we had not opposed Banner Saga's trade mark application, it would be much easier for real copy cats to argue that their use of “Saga” was legitimate. This is an important issue for King because we already have a series of games where “Saga” is key to the brand which our players associate with a King game; Candy Crush Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, Farm Heroes Saga and so on. All of these titles have already faced substantive trademark and copyright issues with clones."

So let me get this straight — to prevent others from illegitimately using the word "Saga" King had to file opposition to Stoic's trademark? I'm no trademark expert, but this sounds like a convoluted process.