Release day. A certain jubilant excitement was in the room. After months of work, we were finally submitting the iPad version of Osmos to the App Store! After a few short simple steps, the room would be filled with high-fives and the sound of caps being removed from bottles.<\/p>\n
We filled in the App Store submission form. App Name: Osmos HD<\/em>, Category: Game<\/em>, Description: Absorbing awesomeness<\/em>. We clicked the “next” button and saw the dreaded red font:<\/p>\n Really? That’s odd. How about just “Osmos”? Same result. Our concerns grew; had we taken too long polishing Osmos on iOS? Had someone else already used the name for an app? We searched the App Store to find out what this competing app could be. But in every country, an App Store search for Osmos returned no results. What was going on? A bug in iTunes Connect? We decided to try once more: “Osmos for iPad”, which met with success. Hmmm… ok. We completed the app submission process, punctuated by distracted high fives and hands on chins.<\/p>\n We decided to send an email to appstorenotices@apple.com (the contact point for naming\/legal issues on the App Store), hoping to get to the bottom of this.<\/p>\n Hi,<\/p>\n We just submitted our game Osmos (for the iPad) to the App Store.<\/p>\n During the submission, we discovered that the application names “Osmos” and “Osmos HD” are both taken. (Not sure why, as we searched the store and nothing turned up.) As such, we named it “Osmos for iPad”. We would like to name it “Osmos HD” however, and we plan to name the iPhone version simply “Osmos” when we submit it next month. Osmos is a trademark of Hemisphere Games which we have been using regularly since 2008. Could there be an error in the iTunes Connect system? Or perhaps someone is tying up the name?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We received a prompt reply from appstorenotices, stating they had contacted the developers of the “Osmos” and “Osmos HD” applications. This was followed the next day by another email from a certain developer we will henceforth refer to as… The Russian. (Best read with a Russian accent. ;-) )<\/p>\n \nDear Sir or Madam,<\/p>\n Official part of my message:<\/b><\/p>\n At the present time I\u2019m working on the application \u044f named Osmos and Osmos HD. Its development started in January 2010, in 27 March 2010 I was ready to release it and created a corresponding application in iTunesConnect, but due to discovered problems a considerable finishing was needed. So, the name of the application is currently blocked by me, but the application itself is absent at AppStore.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not ready to admit criticism concerning piracy of intellectual property on the following grounds:<\/p>\n 1. The term Osmos is commonly used and comes from the Greek word \u1f44\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 (\u00abpush, pressure\u00bb) (see a Wikipedia link<\/a>)<\/p>\n 2. In case Hemisphere Games has a document, confirming registration of the trademark, I won\u2019t release the application under the name of Osmos \/ Osmos HD.<\/p>\n Anyway unlocking of names Osmos and Osmos HD in iTunesConnect has no legal basis due to the lack of violation of any rights, since my application is currently not offered AppStore.<\/p>\n Personal part of my message:<\/b><\/p>\n I admire the Osmos game by Hemisphere Games, and I\u2019m really sorry that our interests have collided. The development had started before Hemisphere Games announced that they were going to port their application at iPhone.<\/p>\n I\u2019m only an indie-developer and my company consists of me only. I understand that if Hemisphere Games presents a claim in the court, they will win the case (since I’m in Russia and Apple and Hemisphere Games are in the USA). [Hemi note: for the record, we’re Canadian.]<\/p>\n But on the other hand I think that Hemisphere Games was also a small company in the very beginning. And they understand which problems an indie-games developer faces in the very beginning of his career.<\/p>\n For the present time my expenses for development of the program named Osmos amount to $350, based on my experience of selling previous games I think that the profit from sales in case of release will amount to about $1000 (since I have no money for promotion and advertisement).<\/p>\n In case Hemisphere Games offsets the costs of development and loss of profit, I will drop the proprietary rights for Osmos and Osmos HD.<\/p>\n Amount of compensation is $1350<\/p>\n If Hemisphere Games has any other proposals for solving of our conflict I’m ready to hear them.<\/p>\n Thank you for attention. I really hope we will solve this conflict.<\/p>\n Sincerely yours, The Russian\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ah, extortion. (I particularly like the part that says “I think that Hemisphere Games was also a small company in the very beginning.” Ah yes, Hemisphere Games, the giant multinational. ;-) ) It seems that cyber squatting, so popular in the late-90s is once again alive and well on the App Store. Domain name squatting naturally died off after Google arrived on the scene. Now everyone knows that you’re more likely to get the information you need by searching for “milk” in Google, rather than hope that Milk.com<\/a> has the information you’re looking for. Unfortunately, the name is still vitally important on the App Store.<\/p>\n So, how did it end? Well, some of you may have noticed that Osmos HD actually appears as “Osmos for iPad” on the store. We didn’t want to delay that release. But a few weeks later, when we were almost ready to submit Osmos (for iPhone) we tried the submission process again and – lo and behold – the name Osmos was available! We’re not sure what happened, but we suspect we owe someone at Apple a thank you. [Edit: Actually, we’re now thinking it’s more likely the developer’s submission expired! See Greg C’s comment below for details. Thanks, Greg!]<\/p>\n All’s well that ends well. But the message for all you developers out there is: begin an App Store submission early — perhaps you’ll beat The Russian to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Release day. A certain jubilant excitement was in the room. After months of work, we were finally submitting the iPad version of Osmos to the App Store! After a few short simple steps, the room would be filled with high-fives and the sound of caps being removed from bottles. 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