Comment by aidenn0
4 days ago
No reasonable person would have been confused into thinking it was an official IKEA game; IANAL, but it seems unlikely to me that IKEA would have ultimately prevailed in court, though a simple change to the color of the logo would probably have been helpful to the devs of the game.
It's a direct ripoff of https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3008, a popular sci-fi horror story set in an IKEA. At the time the game was also using IKEA's brand colors.
The game description on Steam even explicitly mentions "SCP Foundation", which the creator also doesn't have the rights to use unless the whole game is Creative Commons-licensed.
IANAL either, but could this be a trademark issue? My understanding is that if you don’t defend your trademarks you risk legally losing them.
You can only defend your trademark with respect to product categories that you actually market. Unless IKEA were in the business of selling parody video games, their trademark doesn't apply.
Wait... is that why IKEA just put out a parody video game?
The game featured a store and stuff in it, that's a product category IKEA markets.
If the name of an unrelated game was IKEA as some clever acronym or such and it was unrelated to stores, that would be a different trademark convo.
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IKEA has made video games for a long time: https://store.steampowered.com/app/447270/IKEA_VR_Experience...
You can also defend it against tarnishment. They can argue that IKEA appearing in a violent video game has negative associations with their trademarks.
Unethical IP lawyers spew that nonsense all the time. Failing to enforce your trademark against a tiny alleged infringer has no effect on your trademark rights at all.
This is false, however this is not seem like a case where trademark is being infringed. If someone else opens a store called Ikea they obviously have to shut it down.
Yeah, that seems like the type of thing that should at least in theory be fair use.
That's not how trademark works.
If you don't defend your mark, you lose it.
Fair use is not how trademarks work? Why does the International Trademark Association seem to think it is then? https://www.inta.org/fact-sheets/fair-use-of-trademarks-inte...
IKEA has a trademark on STYR?
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Depending of the court, if you don't protect your trademarks you can lose them.
Law is rarely remotely reasonable, just because you (or society) think a certain way, does not mean law does.
Society however determines how we respond when a company abuses a law. Just because suing indie developers may be the best action for IKEA to protect their trademarks does not mean we should let it be the best action for them overall.