It's safe to assume game developer Blizzard has some big deals on its slate of unannounced projects, but new filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office suggest one of them is particularly dire. Game industry sleuthing site superannuation on Wednesday unearthed a trio of Blizzard applications filed last Friday, each covering various uses of the word "cataclysm."
One filing covers the use of the term as it relates to computer games and mouse pads. The second seeks to lock up the name for use in entertainment services (specifically online games), and the third covers a wide range of ancillary uses, including comics, strategy guides, coloring books, stickers, greeting cards, manuals, and art prints.
While the "cataclysm"--a violent upheaval or tremendous flood--could fit within Blizzard's key franchises like Diablo or Warcraft, it could also be tied up with a fresh property. In May, the developer confirmed that its long-awaited massively multiplayer online role-playing game follow-up to World of Warcraft will be based on a new intellectual property.
While the trademark filings give away the fact that Blizzard has designs for the term, they do little else. It's not uncommon for trademarks to go unrealized, as was the case with previous filings like Activision's Guitar Villain or Blizzard's own Diablo II: Salvation.
When asked for comment, a Blizzard representative told GameSpot, "We appreciate the interest, but we don't have any details to share at this time."
What sort of cataclysms would you like to see from Blizzard?
Brendan Sinclair reported for GameSpot.
Dell's Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook.
(Credit: Dell)Here's how you know how enamored Dell is with the Netbook concept: it's volunteered to fight over the trademark on behalf of all other Netbook makers.
On Wednesday the PC maker filed a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel a registered trademark for the term "Netbook" by a company called Psion.
Psion is a Canadian mobile computer maker that owns the trademark and indeed has sold a product called Netbook in the past. Psion began sending some tech bloggers and Netbook makers cease-and-desist notices late last year asking them to stop using the term "Netbook." It's what you're supposed to do when you own a trademark: defend it.
But Dell is taking the legal step of accusing the company of failing to defend it properly, not actually using the term for any current products--or for the last six years--and for lying about it. (See Dell's petition to the USPTO here.)
Dell's point in the filing that the term is generic seems valid. Not only Dell, but Asus, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Samsung, MSI, and many others have been using Netbook as a blanket term to describe small form-factor laptops with low-power processors, usually Intel's Atom chip, for over a year.
Dell has three products that fall under the Netbook category, the Inspiron Mini 9, Mini 10, and Mini 12, but it's not entirely clear why the company has volunteered for this fight. Is it feeling charitable? Or suddenly passionate about patent and trademark reform? Note that this is the same company that tried to trademark "cloud computing."
Just when you've gotten to the point where you can type on your BlackBerry upside down in the dark, they're thinking about changing the keyboard.
Would you want to type on an angled Blackberry keyboard?
(Credit: PTO [via ZDnet])A patent application filed on behalf of Research in Motion was recently revealed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and it describes an "angular keyboard" where the keys are set at a 45-degree angle to the base of the unit.
Anybody who has spent hours dashing off e-mails on a BlackBerry would have to learn a whole method of text input, but the payoff might be felt in the lack of hand and wrist pain. It looks to me like the keyboard would be using a predictive text-style entry system, where one key represents two or more letters in the alphabet.
But, of course, patent applications aren't necessarily product blueprints. And RIM's not exactly having trouble selling the BlackBerry as it stands; last week the company said it was starting to gain traction with consumers, not just the executive types famous for their attachment to the CrackBerry.
The folks over at Trademork have uncovered a trademark filed by the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) for the name "SoundUnwound." In the description, IMDb lists the potential future service as:
"Providing information regarding, and in the nature of, social networking services; online social networking services designed for people with a common desire to meet other people with similar interests; Social networking services for music enthusiasts."
While IMDb is currently limited to movies, TV shows, and other visual mediums, it's also expanded into a resume service as well as offering video games. The company is owned by Amazon.com, which just happens to be a massively popular music provider, both for optical media as well as digital downloads. While Amazon hasn't released sales numbers since the launch of their DRM-free music service in late September, what's a better way to leverage a large catalog than with an integrated user community? IMDb is already selling movies inside their site, using Amazon.com's catalog and kicking users off via affiliate links. The same could easily be done with Amazon's music catalog, which is to be expected of SoundUnwound.
What's a bit interesting is that Amazon hasn't chosen to simply pick up one of the current sites that are offering social matching based on music taste, including iLike, Last.fm, and MyStrands (which incidentally took $24M in funding this morning); the first two of which have successful Facebook apps in addition to their own communities. Amazon must be looking to either provide deeper integration or leverage their own account system, which would let users buy music without requiring a separate registration. Stay tuned.
- prev
- 1
- next
