Why is that questionable? They made a very popular game and, as happens with profitable apps, a ton of developers fire up their clone factories and start creating Candy Crash, Candy Mush, Candy Squeeze, Candy Crush HD, and any other name they can think of in order to cause confusion in the market and cash in on their efforts. Isn't this kind of thing exactly what trademark law was designed to protect against? Keep in mind that to trademark something you need to narrowly define the scope in which the trademark applies. So places selling actual candy or those using the word candy not in a computer game would be completely unaffected.
Are you suggesting that no other games used the word 'candy' in their title prior to Candy Crush?
All those developers would suddenly be hit by this trademark, and would be forced to rename their pre-existing games, unless they can afford to lose money on some expensive lawyers.
Prior use is a defense against a trademark claim. Yes, it may involve lawyers to enforce that right, but the reality of the business world is that if you have a name you want protected, then you register for a trademark of that name (and if you don't get it, pick another name). Otherwise, be prepared to have to fight for it if someone registers the name you're using after you had the opportunity to do so but didn't.
The part of that article that really sucks is that King went out of their way to purchase the rights to a game that was made in 2004 and had a "Candy" trademark in order to prevent the 2010 registrant from contesting. That's playing dirty.
That aside, it certainly seems to be inspired by CandySwipe plus Bejeweled. Not as bad as FreeCiv, which is a blatant, unashamed clone of Civization (with only minor differences). But I guess nobody complains about that since it's free.
