the letter r – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "the letter r"

Updated: Take-Two Opposed Trademark, But Settled It

from the r-u-serious? dept

As a few people in the comments pointed out, this story is not just old, but it’s out of date, as Remedy and Take Two settled this dispute last year. We apologize for messing up the story, but will leave the original below (with strikethroughs) to remind us to be better about checking our sources.

Take-Two Interactive has already established itself as an IP bully. There are plenty of examples of this from the past several years, but my favorite remains the company’s opposition of a trademark for Rockstar Axe Throwing merely because it had the name “Rockstar” in it. No concern was given to how similar the logos and names in total were, nor the simple fact that the axe-throwing industry and the video game industry aren’t terribly related to one another.

At least in the latest instance of Take-Two opposing a trademark, both companies are in the video game space. Little else about the opposition makes a great deal of sense, however. Take-Two has opposed Remedy Entertainment’s new logo, claiming a concern over customer confusion, simply because the logo is dominated by a stylized “R”.

Take-Two Interactive has filed an opposition to Remedy Entertainment’s newest logo, claiming the symbol infringes on Rockstar Games’ logo despite the two having little in common besides the letter “R” representing a video game publisher. First reported by RespawnFirst, the trademark dispute was filed against two versions of the Remedy logo (one with the company’s name, one without) in September with the UK’s Intellectual Property Office.

The UK’s IP rules mean Take-Two’s objection to the logo suggests Rockstar’s parent company sees “a likelihood of confusion by the public.” Engadget reached out to Take-Two and Remedy for comment, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.

So, how “little in common” do the two logos have? Well, they basically have almost nothing in common other than both of them featuring predominant “R”s in the logo. The color schemes are different. The fonts are different. The entire branding is very, very different. Don’t believe me? Here’s Rockstar’s logo:

And here is Remedy’s:

If those two logos confuse you, I don’t know what to tell you. And making this all the more bizarre is the fact that these two companies are actually business partners! The two companies are jointly working on modern remakes of Remedy’s famous early Max Payne games.

Ironically, the two studios are currently working together on a revamp of the game Remedy’s new logo is diverting away from. In April 2022, Remedy said it would collaborate with Rockstar on fully remastered versions of the first two Max Payne games, bringing the oughts-era franchise to a new generation.

And so what we have here is an overly protective Take-Two Interactive opposing the logo for its own business partner over essentially a singular letter in the English alphabet.

How that makes any sense is a question I simply cannot answer.

Filed Under: likelihood of confusion, r, the letter r, trademark, trademark bully
Companies: remedy entertainment, take two interactive