If you’re currently developing an app for Apple’s App Store, you may want to refrain from including the word “memory” in the title. It may save you a major headache down the road.
According to a report from Gamasutra, Apple is sending out notices to some app developers that let them know that their games or apps with the word “memory” in the title have to be changed or they have to go.
Apparently, Apple is sending these requests at the behest of a German game maker called Ravensburger, who claims that they hold the trademark on the word “memory” in many European countries (and some in other parts of the world).
Those countries include: Armenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Equador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela.
Of course, their trademark (granted it’s legit) doesn’t pull any weight in the United States. But any app in the App Store that is available to an international audience would be affected by it.
And there are plenty of apps that fit the bill. If you search the App Store for apps containing the word “memory,” you’ll find that it’s a fairly popular term within the ecosystem. I was able to spot over 50 without really diving too deep into it.
Ravensburger offers a card game simply called “Memory,” which is similar to the paired match game that we’re all familiar with. They also offer branded versions of the game included Toy Story Memory, Winnie the Pooh Memory, and Hello Kitty Memory.