Earlier this week, we reported Ubisoft was dropping the trademark for its upcoming hacking epic Watch Dogs. Surprising to say the least, many began to assume that Ubisoft was merely rebranding Watch Dogs and possibly tying it in with another franchise such as Assassin’s Creed (which, as I state in the post linked above, would actually make sense).
Yet, it turns out Ubisoft never actually dropped the Watch Dogs trademark to begin with. Apparently, an unknown party within Ubisoft attempted to abandon the trademark a few days ago. Why? Nobody knows, and due to the dropping of the trademark being labeled as ‘fraudulent,’ the United States Patent and Trademark Office has announced that the Watch Dogs trademark has been reinstated.
“Here, the circumstances are extraordinary,” said the USPTO in a review of the case. “an unknown party who lacked authority executed the purported abandonment of the application. Although the request appears to have been sent by petitioner, petitioner declared that it did not submit the request and has every reason to believe that this filing was fraudulent. The Director finds the application should not have been abandoned. Pursuant to supervisory authority provided by 37 C.F.R. §2.146(a)(3), the Director permits the reinstatement of the application.”
So there you have it: Watch Dogs is still going to be Watch Dogs, and nothing has actually changed.