SAN FRANCISCO — Creators of the casual sex app Bang With Friends are being sued by Zynga, the company that brought Facebook its family of “with friends” games.
Zynga alleges that the app that matches Facebook friends anonymously for casual sex has infringed on its trademark for games like Words With Friends and Chess With Friends.
“Zynga filed a lawsuit to stop blatant infringement of its valuable ‘with friends’ brand,” said Renee Lawson, Zynga’s deputy general counsel. “Zynga is compelled to file suit to prevent further consumer confusion and protect its intellectual property rights against infringement.”
The Internet gaming company seeks a court order preventing the use of the name Bang With Friends in conjunction with any social networking app, as well as unspecified damages.
The complaint says that Bang With Friends selected its name last year with "Zynga’s game trademarks fully in mind."
“As a technology company, we take intellectual property seriously and will evaluate the case in detail once we receive a copy,” Bang With Friends said.
Zynga was once the largest producer of games played on Facebook, including the popular titles FarmVille, CityVille and Mafia Wars. Its IPO raised $1 billion in 2011, the second biggest debut of a U.S. company since Google raised $1.9 billion in 2004.
Diminishing demands of Zynga’s Facebook games has led to a depreciation of its stock and recently abandonment by its top managers, Bloomberg reported.
The complaint can be viewed here.