最近据游戏邦了解，热门社交游戏FarmVille，CityVille的开发公司Zynga一直向另一款社交游戏BlingVille发出禁止函，认为该款游戏侵犯了Zynga公司的商标权。

BlingVille的开发公司Overtime Apps向美国西弗吉尼亚州地方法院提出上诉，表示该公司自去年11月起便一直收到Zynga发出的禁止函，称对方扬言如果BlingVille不做出回应，他们就将诉诸法律手段。

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据游戏邦了解，社交游戏机巨头Zynga自两年前开始陆续发布了六款“Ville”系列游戏，分别为CityVille，FarmVille，FishVille，FrontierVille，PetVille和YoVille。以上游戏约目前共有近2亿9500万的月活跃用户。此外，Zynga公司最近还正筹备一个虚拟货币奖励项目RewardVille。

但BlingVille目前还正处于公测阶段，Overtime Apps公司宣称已在2004年便注册了BlingVille.com域名，并于同年11月进行了商标注册，之后还“提交了其对BlingVille域名及BlingVille商标所享有的合法权益。”

Overtime Apps表示，“Zynga并不享有，也没有向USPTO注册或申请与“BlingVille”同样或类似的商标，因此，BlingVille社交游戏并没有侵犯Zynga公司的任何合法权益。”尽管Zynga公司曾称将与之对簿公堂，但BlingVille已率先向法院声明其享有BlingVille商标的使用权，同时要求Zynga支付律师费，以及由禁止函产生的各种相关费用。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Zynga, maker of popular social games like FarmVille and CityVille, has sent several cease and desist letters to Blingville, accusing the independent developer of trademark infringement.

In a complaint submitted by Blingville to a West Virginia U.S. District Court and posted by Techdirt, the Harpers Ferry-based developer said it began receiving cease and desist notices from Zynga last November. BlingVille also claimed Zynga has threatened legal action if it failed to comply.

Zynga has released the most popular applications on Facebook in the past two years, collecting over 295 million monthly active users on the social network and publishing six games with “Ville” in their titles: CityVille, FarmVille, FishVille, FrontierVille, PetVille, and YoVille. It’s preparing a virtual currency reward program for its players called RewardVille, too.

Blingville, which has a self-titled game on Facebook under public beta testing, claims another company, Overtime Apps, registered a Blingville.com domain name in October 2004 and filed a trademark registration for the title in November 2004. Overtime Apps then “assigned all of its right title and interest in and to the ‘Blingville’ name and trademark application to BlingVille”.

“Zynga does not own and has not registered or applied for any trademark registrations at the USPTO for any trademark rights in the word ‘Blingville’ or any word marks similar thereto,” argued the studio in its complaint. “Blingville’s use of the trademark ‘Blingville’ in its social networking game constitutes a fair use of the trademark.”

The independent developer added, “Zynga has asserted, and Blingville denies, that Blingville’s use of the trademark name ‘Blingville’ in its social networking game violates the [Lanham (Trademark) Act] with respect to Zynga or any of Zynga’s trademarks or its social networking games containing the letter combination of ‘ville’.”

Though Zynga has only threatened to file a lawsuit, Blingville is asking the court to declare that its use of the Blingville trademark name does not infringe any of the FarmVille maker’s trademarks. It’s also asking the court to order Zynga to pay its “attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses incurred as a result of [the] controversy created by the cease and desist letters.” (Source :Gamasutra)