The German game company Ravensburger claims to have first published the board game “Memory” in February 1959. While there have been many variations of the game since its original release, Ravensburger holds the trademark for the word in more than 40 countries. The trademark protection does not extend to the United States, but the video game news website Gamasutra reported on November 13, 2012, that Apple sent notices to several developers asking them to remove or rename apps that have the term “Memory” in their titles.
Darren Murtha, one of the developers behind Preschool Memory Match told Gamasutra that he was forced to remove it from all 42 countries in which Ravensburger holds the trademark. “We plan on changing the name in those countries and uploading a new version early next year,” Murtha told Gamasutra by email.
Gamasutra said the request from Ravensburger “could be a headache for quite a few developers,” as there were more than 50 games listed in the US App Store with “Memory” in their titles. Gamasutra wrote that most of them appeared to be card-matching games similar to “Memory,” and “it is an easy assumption” that many of the apps have international versions available.
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