So, a5teroids (one of the Allegro 5 demos) has been on Google Play for a month or two now... but today I got an email saying it's been suspended because of ALLEGED trademark infringement. No surprise, it's Atari claiming this.

There's no doubt that the games are similar... but how ridiculous is this? As far as I'm aware a trademark is a name or image. Atari owns the trademark of the name "Astroids". So what qualifies as infringment? Asteroids are such an obvious target for games... I don't know how they can pull this over (for like 30 years now) and why google bends over for them.

What do you think about it? Should any game with a name resembling "Astroids" be illegal? Again, Google admits themselves that the infringement is only ALLEGED, yet they still stop the game from being download. And for the record, the game was free.

Yeah, I don't think I can do anything with it without Atari's approval. Atari has to send Google a message giving the Ok. Retarded.

NOTE: It is "Asteroids" that Atari owns the trademark for not "Astroids".

Well I'm not a lawyer, but that's what I think it's about. That's what a trademark is right? (serious question)

You trademark words, that I know. I think you can also trademark logos (a bit more generalized than copyrights in such a case) but I doubt that's the problem. Anything else would be a copyright or patent issue.

A5teroids looks "stunningly" like Asteroids, and they could argue in court (hypothetically, not like you'll get there) that the similarity is intended to be unclear as to confuse consumers. Since the whole point of trademark is to avoid confusing consumers, they have appropriate grounds.

So says the legal hobbyist, though. Also I only know about United States trademark, copyright and patent laws. Other countries are out of my range.

Yhea, I remembered you had a similar problem with Apple. Thanks for posting that info Trent.

Let's see the cup as half-full and turn this into a thread for name ideas.

• A5 Many Rocks A5 You Can Handle

• A5under (because it means "into separate parts; in or into pieces," and that already covers 75% of the original design document for Asteroids)

• A5S-TEARING-ROIDS, because that's actually what hemorrhoids literally do.

You find nothing wrong with trademarking the word "asteroids"? I think I'll trademark "teh" and then when people spell it "the" their ass is grass.

EDIT: I think the stupidest part is, all Atari had to do was submit a CLAIM, and also to get the game back in the store ATARI has to approve it. WTF?!

I still think it's ridiculous. It's like trademarking "Racing" or something. It's an obvious target for games.

No I wouldn't.

The only title I'd be upset about someone using is "Monster RPG 3".

Sure, ok... I guess I can agree to that. But why is Atari the judge and jury? That's the really f'ed up part... If I change the name and say "Hey Atari, I changed the name so it no longer infringes!", I highly suspect to get no response or "the gameplay is the same" which can't be trademarked, but try explaining that to them...

I think copyrights are fairly well implemented, though too easy to abuse. Patents get really shitty really fast. MPEG can bite itself.

I also agree that Google's being a little shit by letting Atari control the situation. It's like they're trying to say that big corporations are the legal enforcers of the world and not the courts. At the very least, it should be Google who makes these judgments.

Wow, they failed miserably. It seems, though, that Microsoft is much more likely to loose in court than most corporations.

<insert conspiracy theory here>