Zynga isn’t going down without a fight, especially when they feel someone is infringing on their trademark. The social games provider recently filed a lawsuit in a California district court against the developers of “Bang With Friends,” a service that describes itself as an anonymous way to hook up with your Facebook friends.
With the app, users are asked to sign in with their Facebook credentials, select the friends they are interested in hooking up with and the app does the rest. If there are any matches, Bang With Friends will notify both users via e-mail and, well, the rest is up to you.
Zynga isn’t game, however, not due to the sexual nature of the app but rather the company’s use of “With Friends,” a trademark they claim to own belonging to their family of games. In a message on the matter, Zynga said they filed suit to protect their hard-earned intellectual property rights from the defendant’s opportunistic exploitation of their trademark.
Bang With Friends co-founder Colin Hodge said his company heard through media reports that Zynga filed a trademark infringement claim against them. As a technology company, Hodge said they take intellectual property seriously and will evaluate the case in detail once they receive a copy of the complaint.
The lawsuit points out that Zynga initially approached the company through informal efforts although talks eventually fell through. Zynga believes those negotiations were either a ploy to buy time or perhaps Bang With Friends changed their mind after receiving considerable media attention.
