Does "Wheel of fortune" have trademarks on all colored wheels?

I have an app that has a colored wheel with numbers on it that users can spin. The colors, quadrant size, font and theme of the wheel isn't similar at all to "Wheel of fortune". I got an email from this lady that says she works from GSN game show network and that I'm in violation of the intercultural property. I changed the wheel up quite a bit more and sent her the new screenshots. She replied with "Any use of the Wheel that could be interpreted as “Wheel of Fortune” is off the table, so unfortunately, loosely that means any multi-colored wheel."

This simply can't be true is it? I mean what about pie charts? Furthermore I went looking for such a trademark and nothing seems to exist. Not only that but I've seen thousands of multi-colored wheels in my day are they really all in violation?

This lady has nothing to do with the legal department, she just seems to want to help me change my app before anything does happen...but I'm not sure they have grounds do they?

 

You might have to think of another name for it other than one that includes the words "Wheel" and "Fortune." The other option would be to look into the possibility of obtaining the rights to use the "Wheel of Fortune" name.

 

Where did you get the idea he is using that name? He doesn't say anything of the sort in his post. What he says is that he is using a multi-colored wheel in some sort of game play on an app. It is as though you did not read or comprehend anything he wrote.

 

Yeah I'm not using their name at all. I'm not using their fonts or anything that would be confused with the game Wheel of Fortune. I simply have a wheel that looks like this .

She also told me to remove this icon from my game as it also I guess violates the trademark

What would be the best move on my part? I would like to talk to someone to see if I'm in violation but I'm not sure who to talk to. Would it just be a regular lawyer, patent lawyer or maybe even someone else? The game in question makes more then a doctors salary per year so I would like to not have to take it down. If I'm in violation though I will surely fix it but I don't think that I am.

 

Dave,

I would speak to an Intellectual Property attorney. They can look at the totality of your usage within your game and let you know if it is potentially going to be a problem. The business reality is that it is not a problem unless you get sued and then it is a problem. Win or lose, once it gets to that point you are spending money - even if you end up prevailing.

Also, when negotiating over what might be acceptable it is, in my mind, better to do that through an attorney. One thing a lot of people don't realize is that when they communicate with another party (who might eventually sue you) everything you say is potentially evidence. On the other hand, statements made by on an attorney on your behalf are not. So you have more latitude to have a conversation (through your attorney) without worrying that you might say something that is going to hurt you later on if it came to a lawsuit.

It is not my area of law but if you want help finding a lawyer who can give you some advice shoot me a PM and I can probably point you in the right direction.

 

Thanks for the help I will see what I can find on google around here for IP attorney. I'm not worried about getting sued all that much as they will more then likely just contact google and google will remove the app. That's pretty common from what I've seen. I just want to prepare for the appeal to google if they do take that action. Right now though there are at least 3 apps in the google play store that use the trademarked name and another 10 or so that have identical gameplay to wheel of fortune so I would imagine I'm not top of the list.

 

Unfortunately, browntwn is correct. You have already essentially admitted to violating their claims by asking them "well, is this one OK?"

OTOH, the chances that anything comes of this are slim.