Trademark Risk From Using a Game's Name in an App Title

Attorney Answer

Google's rejection is a policy decision, not a legal ruling — and you will get live far faster by renaming the app than by arguing you are entitled to the name.

Start with the standard the rejection is gesturing at. 15 U.S.C. § 1114 governs civil liability for unauthorized use in commerce of a reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark where the use is likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) reaches false designation of origin and false or misleading representations of fact likely to cause confusion as to origin, sponsorship, affiliation, or approval — the false-association theory, and it does not require the mark to be registered.

Both turn on the same question: would users likely think the game's publisher made, sponsored, or approved your app?

An abbreviation is not the shelter you assumed it was. If the abbreviation is one that players immediately read as the game — which is exactly why you chose it — then it carries the same association the full name does. The riskiest place to put it is the app title and icon, which is precisely where the Play Store flagged you. A factual, descriptive reference in the body of the listing ("a companion for players of X") is a considerably weaker basis for a confusion claim than a title is, though it is not risk-free either.

What you can do

1. Rename the app to something distinctive that contains neither the game's name nor a recognizable abbreviation of it. Do this first — it removes the stated rejection reason and it is the only step fully within your control. 2. Search the mark on the USPTO's public database to see what is actually registered, in what classes, and by whom. 3. Rebuild the store listing: your own brand in the title, the game named only once, factually, in a compatibility sentence in the description. 4. Strip the game's logo, characters, fonts, and color scheme out of your icon and screenshots. 5. Add a clear line to the description: not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the publisher. 6. Resubmit, and if it is rejected again use Google's appeal form and describe specifically what you changed. 7. Check whether the publisher runs a developer program, an API, or published brand-use guidelines. Permission resolves the problem completely and costs nothing to ask for. 8. Bring in a trademark attorney before you spend money building a brand, buying ads, or printing anything around a name.