14 DAY TRIAL // California-based Buzztime Entertainment has filed a lawsuit against Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) based on the fact that, according to them, Sony's line of "Buzz!" games violates several of its own trademarks. The company was established back in 1985 and operates under the Buzztime consumer brand and develops and distributes multiplayer play-along TV games for restaurants and sports bars, cable and satellite television, mobile phones, home electronic games, the Internet, airlines, books and more. So they're kind of everywhere and an estimated number of 13 million players per month kind of proves that.
On the other hand, Sony's "Buzz!" line of quiz games tries to come with a family-friendly approach for the PlayStation 2 owners and expand their audience among the people. However, Buzztime Entertainment, says that Sony's line of games and the "It's time to get buzzing" tagline violates several of its own trademarks.
The twist comes when you find out that Buzztime has no trademark on the word "buzz", even though it has a variety of combinations registered. SCEE has filed for these trademarks (one with the exclamation marks, two without them), but none of them are officially registered yet - they are only published for opposition.
So Buzztime Entertainment decided to file a suit, accusing SCEE of selling similar products to similar audiences, sometimes through similar channels with the intention of misleading consumers into believing the Buzz! series of games has some association with Buzztime. It is also mentioned that SCEE is guilty of "malicious, fraudulent, knowing, willful, and deliberate" violation of its trademarks. They want to have the court ordering the US Patent and Trademark Office not to register Sony's trademarks and they are also asking for actual damages, punitive damages, legal fees as well as having all infringing products recalled and destructed. So, will we see some huge amounts of Sony games burned in front of their company?