Update 3:

The Banner Saga developer Stoic Studios has released a statement about the ongoing trademark issues with King, saying that the inability to use the word "Saga" could hold up the release of a sequel.

"Two years ago, the three of us at Stoic set out to make an epic viking game: The Banner Saga," it reads. "We did, and people loved it, so we're making another one. We won't make a viking saga without the word 'saga,' and we don't appreciate anyone telling us we can't."King.com claims they're not attempting to prevent us from using The Banner Saga, and yet their legal opposition to our trademark filing remains. We're humbled by the outpouring of support and honoured to have others stand with us for the right to their own Saga. We just want to make great games."King has explained that its claim against The Banner Saga was, in essence, a scare tactic to prevent genuine clones from trying to use the word "Saga" and there is no desire to see Stoic unable to use the name. Despite this, the Notice of Opposition mentioned below still stands.Original story and updates follow.

King has issued a statement to IGN, explaining why it has filed against Stoic Studios and The Banner Saga.It reads, "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.“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.”Original story follows.

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It appears King has also filed a trademark for the word "Saga" and isn't happy about Stoic Studio's recently released The Banner Saga.A " Notice of Opposition " has been filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office on behalf of King, which reads "The Banner Saga mark is confusingly and deceptively similar to Opposer's previously used Saga Marks."The use and registration by Applicant of the mark The Banner Saga for Applicant's goods is likely to cause confusion or to cause mistake or deception in the trade, and among purchasers and potential purchasers, with Opposer's Saga Marks, again resulting in damage to Opposer," it concludes.The fact that one of the games is a turn-based strategy title featuring Vikings on PC while the other is a casual but addictive mobile game doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere. We've reached out to both King and Stoic to see if there's any comment on the opposition.In the meantime, a number of indie developers have decided to troll King for trademarking the word "Candy" yesterday by holding an impromptu game jam.Called Candy Jam , it's tasking participants with creating games that prominently feature candies, with bonus points available for liberal use of the words "Candy", "Scroll", "Memory", "Saga" and "Apple".Started by Twitter users @caribouloche and @uuav , they explain on the site that they decided to hold the event "because trademarking common names is ridiculous and because it gives us an occasion to make another game jam."If you're interested in taking part, submissions will be accepted until February 3. The original story about King's trademarking of the word "Candy" follows.

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Candy Crush Saga developer King has been forced to defend its trademarking of the word "Candy" in Europe after facing a backlash.The trademark application was spotted by Gamasutra , and reveals that the company first decided to trademark "Candy" last February, though it was approved for publication on January 15. This now means there's a 30-day window for other companies to oppose the trademark.The trademark has raised eyebrows as it relates to a fairly common word and, if granted, it could cause a wide spectrum of companies across various different markets a lot of grief. The application lists games, games accessories, merchandise, paper hats and a wide variety of other goods as being protected by the trademark.Despite the 30-day period for companies to complain about the trademark before it's fully approved, it appears Apple has already started serving notifications to several rival apps on behalf of King, requesting they change their apps' names. Though some are blatant clones of King's wildly successful title, it seems others may be caught in the crossfire, as is the case with "All Candy Casino Slots - Jewel Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land."In response to criticism, King has clarified to Games Industry that it has no plans to enforce against all uses of the word, and is just trying to protect its interests. A statement explains, "We have trademarked the word 'Candy' in the EU, as our IP is constantly being infringed and we have to enforce our rights and to protect our players from confusion. We don't enforce against all uses of 'Candy' - some are legitimate and of course, we would not ask App developers who use the term legitimately to stop doing so.""The particular App in this instance was called 'Candy Casino Slots - Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land', but its icon in the App store just says 'Candy Slots', focussing heavily on our trademark. As well as infringing our and other developer's IP, use of keywords like this as an App name is also a clear breach of Apple's terms of use. We believe this App name was a a calculated attempt to use other companies' IP to enhance its own games, through means such as search rankings."

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Junior Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter