Zynga Inc (ZNGA) Sues Sex App Developers

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 Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has filed a case against developers of “Bang with Friends” a casual sex internet applications, accusing it over breach of trademark for Zynga’s “with friends” family of games.

Zynga Inc (ZNGA) Sues Sex App Developers

Zynga asking for damages and removal of name

In a complaint filed in a federal court in San Francisco, Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) said that Bang with Friends Inc, which is the developer of the application with the similar name for matching Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) friends anonymously for casual sex has registered its Internet domain name last year, says a report from Bloomberg.

The company “selected the name ‘Bang with Friends’ for its casual sex matchmaking app with Zynga’s game trademarks fully in mind,” according to the complaint. Further, it was mentioned in the filing that the name chosen by the developer is similar to Zynga’s trademark “Words with Friends” and “Chess with Friends”

Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) is expecting that the court should pass the order and stop the company from using the name “Bang with friends” linked to any social networking applications in the United States and damages, which are not mentioned.

Struggling since IPO

The IPO from Zynga raised $1 billion, which was the most by any debutant Internet company in the United States after Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) raised $1.9 billion in its 2004 IPO, as per data of Bloomberg.

Since the issue of its IPO in 2011, Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has seen many top level executives leaving the company because of declining popularity of games on Facebook Inc. The shares of the social game maker have declined more than 70 percent bringing down the value of equity based compensation. Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) once used to be the topmost maker of games played on Facebook with insanely famous titles like CityVille”, “FarmVille” and “MafiaWars” is now struggling to on all fronts.

This month three executives including John Osvald, senior vice president of games, Nathan Etter, vice president of games and Jesse Janosov, vice president of Zynga’s casino division left Zynga. The company hired Don Mattrick, former president of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Interactive Entertainment Business as the company’s new CEO.

For the second quarter, Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) performed ahead of the expectations of the analysts. Adjusted revenue for the game maker came in at $188 million compared to estimated $185 million. Total revenue came in at $231 million, decline of almost 40 percent from the previous year.

The case is Zynga Inc. v. Bang With Friends Inc., 13-03517, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco). There has been no response from Bang with Friends representatives.

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