Lima Sky softens 'doodle' renaming demands

Doodle Jump developer Lima Sky has ended its attempts to force the removal from the App Store of other games using the term 'doodle.'

Lima Sky founder Igor Pusenjak made headlines earlier this week when it emerged that a number of titles had been informed that that they must remove or change the contentious word if they wished to remain on Apple's mobile store.

Following public criticism, Pusenjak has softened his ultimatums to other 'doodle' games, but maintains that he was legally obliged to fight his corner.

"I've instructed my lawyer to contact Apple today to withdraw the notice... The notice overreached in asking Apple to remove the games and named some games that probably should not have been singled out," he admitted in a statement to PocketGamer.biz.

However, he would still be seeking name-changes from games he considered blatant clones of his title. "There was absolutely no rush to call a game 'Doodle Something; until Doodle Jump became famous. Then many developers began jumping on the bandwagon whether their game had any doodled elements in it or not. They were simply trading on the fame of Doodle Jump, for which Lima Sky has a trademark.

"If the name of your game is so close to Doodle Jump that people think Lima Sky created it, we are asking you to change that. If you copied characters from Doodle Jump, we are asking you to change those.

"Under the law, like it or not (and we don't like it), we are required to ask those developers to stop using a name similar to our trademarks, whether the infringer is a little guy or a big guy."

Pusenjak claimed that lawyers working for Acceloroto's Bryan Duke (who created an App Store title known as Doodle Hockey) had threatened to cancel Lima Sky's Doodle Jump trademarks. "One of their arguments for threatening to cancel our registered Doodle Jump trademark was that we did not prevent other games from using the word 'Doodle'."

The Doodle Jump creator is also alleging that Acceleroto's Duke had attempted to register 'doodle' as a trademark some four months before Lima Sky's application - with the latter made "in part as a defensive maneuver." Duke had claimed earlier this week that Lima Sky "doesn't have a leg to stand on" and had urged other 'doodle' developers to hold fast.

Said Pusenjak, "Accelerato's Bryan Duke, and many of you, are ridiculing me for attempting to trademark the word 'Doodle.' But such is trademark law. Apple has a trademark on a name of a fruit (Apple); a number of companies have trademarks on the word 'Memory;' and Facebook is asking for a trademark on 'Face.'"

He claimed that although his lawyers had advised him not to speak out about the controversy, "I must."