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Disney’s Playdom developing ‘City of Warfare’ game? Trademarks filed

City of Might

According to four trademark filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, it appears Disney’s Playdom is developing a new social game called ‘City of Warfare’ to expand upon its City-franchise.

If it’s anything like Playdom’s other games, which includes ‘City of Wonder’, chances are players will build armies in ‘City of Warfare’ and battle other cities. 

Oddly enough, Playdom has developed a game called ‘City of Might’ which has been in closed BETA since March.  Based on the game titles alone, it sounds like ‘City of Might’ and ‘City of Warfare’ are a lot alike.  Playdom even describes City of Might as, “a game where you build a mighty city and defeat your enemies in epic battles.” 

It’s quite possible City of Might is being rebranded as City of Warfare, as no trademark applications are on file for City of Might.

All four trademark applications for City of Warfare (Serial Numbers: 85457270, 85457272, 85457274, and 85457277) were filed on October 26, 2011, by Disney and involve an online virtual community, online social networking services, and entertainment and education services.

The ‘Goods and Services’ are nearly identical to its Gnome Town filings.  I wrote about the Gnome Town trademark applications in late July and days later Playdom officially launched the game to everyone on Facebook.

Here’s a more detailed look at each of the trademark filings:

Serial Number 85457277, Goods and Services
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Apparatus for recording, transmission or reproduction of sound or images; audio books; audio recordings; audio and visual recordings; video game software; computer programs and software; consumer electronics and accessories therefor; hand-held units for playing electronic games for use with an external display screen or monitor; eyeglasses and sunglasses and accessories therefor; binoculars; decorative magnets; graduated rulers; computer software, namely, computer game software; electronic games and game software that may be downloaded via global computer networks and electronic communication networks for use in connection with computers, mobile computers, media players, cellular phones, wireless devices and portable and handheld digital electronic devices

Serial Number 85457274, Goods and Services
IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Entertainment and education services; providing online computer games, online enhancements for computer games, and providing online games; providing information relating to computer games and game enhancements via global computer networks and electronic communication networks for use in connection with computers, mobile computers, media players, cellular phones, wireless devices and portable and handheld digital electronic devices; providing an online entertainment information service featuring information regarding computer games, enhancements for computer games, online games, and game applications via global computer networks and electronic communication networks for use in connection with computers, mobile computers, media players, cellular phones, wireless devices and portable and handheld digital electronic devices; providing temporary use of non-downloadable computer games; providing temporary use of non-downloadable software for playing computer games; providing temporary use of non-downloadable software to enable playing and otherwise providing computer games

Serial Number 85457272, Goods and Services
IC 045. US 100 101. G & S: Online social networking services

Serial Number 85457270, Goods and Services
IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: Computer services, namely, creating an online virtual community for registered users to participate in and hold competitions, showcase their skills, improve their talent, participate in incentive award programs, get feedback from their peers, form virtual communities, trade, buy and sell virtual goods, conduct virtual tours, facilitate interaction among users, rank users, engage in social networking, and participate in on-line discussion boards; providing temporary use of non-downloadable software to enable viewing, previewing, sharing, manipulating, and creating blogs regarding computer games via global computer networks and electronic communication networks for use in connection with computers, mobile computers, media players, cellular phones, wireless devices and portable and handheld digital electronic devices; providing temporary use of non-downloadable software to enable viewing, previewing, sharing, manipulating, enhancements for computer games, online games, and game applications and information relating to computer games and game enhancements via global computer networks and electronic communication networks for use in connection with computers, mobile computers, media players, cellular phones, wireless devices and portable and handheld digital electronic devices

Discussion: Games.com News (blog) and Inside Social Games

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Updates on Top 5 Fusible stories, May

US Navy SEALs coming out of the water

In May 2011, the United States Navy SEALs drew a lot of news coverage on the web following the killing of Osama bin Laden.  But the SEALs weren’t the only story on Fusible that attracted readers.  

Zynga hinted at plans of developing the next top iPhone game with the registration of hangmanwithfriends.com, the Navy won the battle over the SEAL Team 6 trademark and filed its own marks, Sony Pictures got rights to Kathryn Bigelow’s film about killing Osama bin Laden, former TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley sold The Inquisitr on Flippa for $330,000, and UberMedia gave up its domain claim on Twitteripad.com.

Hangman with Friends– There hasn’t been any news regarding Zynga’s plans for “Hangman with Friends”, other than the company registering the domain name hangmanwithfriends.com.  Considering one of the first word games kids learn to play is hangman, you can bet if Zynga does launch a hangman game on the iPad or iPhone, it could very well be the next top ranking iOS game.   

UberMedia and Twitter– After my story about UberMedia purchasing the domain name twitteripad.com was posted, the company deleted the domain from its portfolio.  The good news: the company avoided another possible trademark dispute with Twitter like the one it encountered over UberTwitter.  The bad news: someone in China registered the domain and is now redirecting users to a fake Apple survey page.  These types of websites often lead to scams or other problems for people, like computer viruses.  Either way, it looks like UberMedia made a smart play by dropping the name.  The company just raised another $5.6 million and its entire business revolves around Twitter.

The Inquistr — The Inquisitr (inquisitr.com) founded by former TechCrunch writer and b5media co-founder Duncan Riley in May 2008, sold for $330,000 USD on Flippa.   Two days after my story was published, The Inquisitr ran its own story “Duncan dishes on Inquisitr sale, future plans” that said the sale was complete and the site had changed hands.  “With everything said and done, Duncan has disclosed some facts and figures about the sale of the site. Final sale price was 10% over the reserve of $300,000, at $330,000. Keeping in with the threes trend, it went for 30x the monthly net after writers’ expenses” wrote Kim LaCapria. 

Navy’s SEAL Team trademark battle — I was the first to report (before any other news site or blog) that the Department of Navy filed a trademark for “SEAL Team” following Disney’s trademark filings on SEAL Team 6.  The story got immediately picked up by MediaPost who attributed their story here, but other major media outlets that reported on the news shortly thereafter, failed to give credit.  It can be frustrating as a blogger to see so many news sites and blogs not attribute the sources of their articles.  Ultimately, Disney abandoned their trademark filings.

Sony Pictures — Deadline.com reported that Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired the rights to Kathryn Bigelow’s film about killing Osama bin Laden.  Originally called “killing bin laden”, Kathryn Bigelow had apparently decided to change the film’s title.  Regardless, Sony Pictures registered nearly a dozen domain names including thekillingofbinladenmovie.com.  As of today, the film remains untitled, but the domain names have started forwarding to sonypictures.com.