He wants to trademark his geography game Worldle. The N.Y. Times has a problem with that

Kory McDonald says nobody would confuse his geography-themed game Worldle for the hit New York Times-owned word game Wordle — even if there is only one letter of difference. 

The Seattle software developer is in the middle of a trademark dispute with the media giant over his cheekily named online game, in which players try to identify locations based images from Google Street View. 

“I was kind of surprised and disappointed about it, really,” McDonald told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. 

“If people are looking for a word game and they end up on worldledaily.com, then they will immediately know that they’re not playing a word game.”

The Times, however, disagrees. When asked for comment, the newspaper pointed to its legal filing challenging McDonald’s trademark application.

In it, the newspaper accused McDonald of “capitalizing on the enormous goodwill associated” with Wordle, and argues that approving McDonald’s trademark would be “likely to cause confusion, mistake or deception.”

What’s more, it says any “defect, objection to or fault found with” McDonald’s game “would necessarily reflect on and seriously injure the reputation that NYT has established for its products and services.”

Wordle vs Worldle 

Wordle is a hugely popular mobile game, in which users have a limited number of tries to guess a new, five-letter word every day. Originally created by software engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his girlfriend, it exploded in popularity in 2021.

The New York Times bought Wordle from Wardle in 2022, adding it to its roster of mobile games. According to the Times’s legal filing, the game has millions of daily players.

Worldle, by contrast, is a web browser game created by McDonald, in which users guess a new location every day, based on a series of images. 

He says about 100,000 people play it every month, and he doesn’t earn a profit. While he does sell ads and offer a paid version of the game, he says he uses that money to cover the cost of the Google images he uses. 

“It seemed like a fun way to explore the world every day,” McDonald said. “You kind of learn what different regions of the world look like. You get exposed to different cultures. It really feels like the most learning-based spinoff that there has been.”

It is indeed one of thousands of daily puzzle games that were created in Wordle’s wake that end in “-le.”

For example: there’s Nerdle, a math puzzle game, Heardle, a music puzzle game, and SWorldle, a Star Wars word game. There are even several other games out there called Worldle. 

McDonald says the vast majority are created and maintained by hobbyists, and by standing up for his game, he’s standing up for all of them. 

“When the New York Times goes after them, their whole livelihood is at stake,” McDonald said. “I am one of the few in the industry that could actually take a stand. And I kind of fear that if Worldle falls, the New York Times might continue to broaden out its scope.”

In March, the Times sent takedown notices to several games that it argued were violating its copyright. 

Does the Times have a good case?

Now that the Times has filed a notice of opposition to McDonald’s trademark application, he will be given a chance to appeal. 

Ultimately, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will decide who’s in the right.

Intellectual property lawyer Matthew D. Asbell, partner at the U.S. firm Lippes Mathias, says he can see arguments for both sides.

But he doesn’t think the existence of other Wordle-inspired games will factor into the decision.

“He may be able to say that the ‘-le’ portion … of a mark is something that is commonly used by lots of different parties, but what about the rest?” he said. “He has a word that differs by a fairly soft spoken letter. The rest is all the same.”

Montreal trademark lawyer David Durand, president of the intellectual property awareness non-profit FORPIQ, says it’s not uncommon for trademark holders to file objections to new applications — “especially when the marks are similar in appearance and there seems to be an overlap in the statement of goods and/or services.”

Whether McDonald can prevail, he says, depends.  

While Canadian and U.S. law differ, he says any trademark board “would have to receive some pretty convincing legal argumentation and evidence to persuade it that the marks are different.”

“For instance, the nature of the game being played (word versus geography) and the way in which the marks are pronounced,” Durand told CBC in an email.

“But then again, that’s for the board to decide. Good luck to all players.”