Zynga is the developer of French games in the title of the city

By Gerry Shih

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Zynga Inc. (ZNGA.)(O), the Publisher of popular games on Facebook as "FarmVille" and "CityVille", accuses the French editor games Kobojo of infringement of trade mark, according to the court documents.

Zynga complaint, filed in the Federal Court in San Francisco Friday, is centered around PyramidVille, Kobojo Facebook game title, released in early 2011.

"Facebook users are likely to believe, wrongly, that PYRAMIDVILLE is a member of Zynga ' family of the city of games," Zynga said in its complaint.

The trial comes as Zynga effort for a trademark for the word "City" stagnate in the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Although Zynga is not the holder of a trademark for the word "City", the company said in its complaint that it "systematically promoted 'family of the city of games together in family, identified by the distinctive character' suffix of the city.".

The trial is the latest in a series of battles of the trademark for the company of social games of San Francisco, who was locked in a spat with Blingville made similar, the creator of a namesake Facebook game.

"" City"of Zynga family includes many known games, including FarmVille, CityVille, and CastleVille and the suffix is strongly bound by Zynga players,"City"," Zynga said in a news release Monday. "Given the refusal to Kojobo to change their name, legal action was necessary to defend our famous brands and to avoid confusion to the reader."

In recent years, Zynga has won millions of users who pay for play sound "" City "suite of games of management resources, which include mechanisms for similar game but different themes." The company continued to roll the new additions to the series to keep the interest of the users on the Facebook platform ultra-competitive.

Zynga has requested damages of three times the profit Kobojo WINS PyramidVille.

Kobojo could not be immediately reached for comment.

Kobojo, founded in 2008, received approximately $ 7.5 million in funding of European venture capital companies last year. The Publisher of the game was also part of a program supported by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.) global Startup Accelerator(O), although Microsoft does not have a stake in the company.

(Reported by Gerry Shih;) (Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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