Try downloading Candy Swipe. Yeah it came first, but the game isn't nearly as good - the graphics are stagnant, the objectives are unclear, and the game itself is just boring. Not to mention both games are just derivatives of a thousand other tile matching games that have existed since the NES days.

Game mechanics are not trademarkable, and its a huge benefit for the entire industry. Studios steal from eachother and make incremental improvements, which means a lot more variety in genres, more choices for consumers, and a greater commitment to quality. Still, big studios try to weasel their way into exclusivity through trademarks.

I say don't hate on King.com for their past actions, reprimand them for trying to change the rules of the game once they reached the top of the hill.

As I have not played either game, I was not commenting on the game mechanics. I was referring to the fact that two similar games may not necessarily be allowed to have similar names if one were trademarked, which is the mostly the focus of the guy's complaint. Considering King's reaction to his complaint, I would say that King actually supports his claim but are using a clever method to get around it to use his own claim against him.

I agree that there's not much to be done, and should not be done, about copying a game's mechanics and attempting to improve upon them. But part of the accusations are cloning art assets which can have consequences up to a certain point. I think a combination of cloning art assets in accordance with their respective game mechanics should be an issue in this case, whether the law supports this notion I have no idea.

It's not a copy of Candy Swipe, though. The Candy Swipe creator has been painting a really bad picture of King, but if you actually download and play both apps, you'll see they're completely different games. Even the supposed copying of the graphics and colors that the Candy Swipe dev blogged about didn't really happen. Each app uses the primary colors. That's it.

I've seen lawsuits for less.

Keep in mind that King purchased an app created before this guy's was released and responded using his own complaint against him. It would seem that gives some credence to the guy's original complaint.