“Candy Crush Saga” Developer Denied Bid to Crush Website Candycrush-Cheats.com

A website providing tips and tricks for navigating the popular smartphone game “Candy Crush Saga” lives on, despite the game developer’s efforts to shut it down.

King.com, an interactive entertainment company, filed a complaint in June with the World Intellectual Property Organization, alleging candycrush-cheats.com was being used in bad faith. King.com argued the domain name was used simply to attract users to the website by capitalizing on the game’s popularity. “Candy Crush Saga,” which allows players to mix and match sweets to gain points, has been downloaded tens of millions of times on Facebook.

The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center disagreed with King.com, determining this month that providing tip sheets for navigating Candy Crush Saga’s more than 500 levels was sufficient to give the registrant a legitimate interest in the domain name. However, should it later become apparent that the domain name is merely a pretext for unfair commercial gain, there could be grounds for refiling the complaint, WIPO stated. King.com Limited and Midasplayer.com Ltd. v. Robertson J M Price, Domains By Proxy, LLC, Robertson Price, Scrapple Labs, W.I.P.O., No. D2014-1081, 9/2/14

Earlier this year, King.com was widely criticized for attempting to trademark the word “candy” and for sending cease-and-desist letters to other developers that use “candy” in the titles of games. King.com decided in February to withdraw its “candy” application.

Although WIPO refused to grant King.com the rights to candycrush-cheats.com, the following inactive websites were transferred to King.com: candycrushrespuestas.info; candycrushrespuestas.net; candycrushrespuestas.org; candycrushtrucos.com; candycrushtrucos.net; and candycrushworld.com.