Feb. 5, 2014 update: The Watch Dogs trademark has been reinstated by the USPTO.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard much about Ubisoft’s upcoming open world game Watch Dogs. So it’s not surprising people were worried when it was discovered that the trademark was abandoned on the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s website. But as many things related to trademarks go, the truth is much different than the rumors that sparked after the news.
It turns out, it was a fraudulent request to abandon the Watch Dogs trademark by an unknown party. Ubisoft has already submitted a petition to reinstate it.
“We are working directly with the USPTO on reinstating the trademark for Watch Dogs and it will be active again in the coming days,” a representative for the company told Polygon. “The matter has no impact on the Watch Dogs‘ development.”
Take a deep breath. Watch Dogs isn’t going anywhere.
We still don’t have an exact release date for the game, other than the vague window of Ubisoft’s fiscal first quarter, which begins on April 1, 2014 and ends on June 30. Ubisoft will release its third quarter financials next week, so it wouldn’t be surprising if we get a proper release date soon.
Bit Brick 