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Take-Two Interactive hits indie game It Takes Two with trademark claim

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Josef Fares' co-op indie title It Takes Two was forced to abandon its trademark after a claim by Take-Two Interactive, according to documents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Take-Two filed the claim on October 26, 2020, and developer Hazelight Studios abandoned its trademark on March 30, 2021, four days after the game's launch. In a statement to Eurogamer, Hazelight acknowledged it had to abandon the trademark due to Take-Two's claim, said it remained hopeful the "ongoing disputes" could be resolved, but did not comment on how it affected the game's performance, or any plans to change the name for a sequel or future release.

Other documents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office show Take-Two has an extensive history of filing claims like this, not just for the name Take-Two, but for anything even close to their subsidiaries or brands, including trademarks containing the words rockstar, social club, or bully. Examples include clothing brand Max Fayne, retailer Project 1920 for its slogan "Don't Be a Rockstar, Be a Legend" (which appears to be based on a quote attributed to Freddie Mercury), artist and holistic healer Jennifer Charton for her company Goddess Rockstar Arts, and business consultation firm Restaurant Rockstars LLC. There's even a claim against Obschestvo s ogranichennoy otvetstvennostyu "AytiReks Grupp Bel" for its logo, which is infringing on the Rockstar logo of a simple R. The offending logo can be seen below on the left, next to Rockstar's logo for comparison on the right.

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Earlier this year, Take-Two also took legal action against the GTA fan community for several mods, including the popular reverse-engineering projects.

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relauby

relauby

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I didn't want to source Google Translate in an article, but if anyone's curious, apparently Obschestvo s ogranichennoy otvetstvennostyu "AytiReks Grupp Bel" is Russian for Limited Liability Company "AitiRex Group Bel". I also didn't want to go overboard on the examples, but they're also claiming a tech company in Beijing called StarRocks, Rockstar Axe Throwing, a mark for something called T2Spin, something called Taketro, a TV series (I think?) called "Inside the Mafia", a podcast from Art of the Piano called "Take Five," and anything with GTA in its acronym, including GTAPLAM, GTADQIU, ZZGTA, GTANUU and G-TAB. They also filed a claim against something called Bully-Free World, which, when I Google it, turns up an organization trying to help parents and schools prevent bullying of special needs children, though I couldn't firmly establish that that's the one Take-Two is going after. Of course, I'm no expert, and they very well may be doing that.

Also, here are all the R logos I found them going after (I gave up after 6 pages): Omnirift LLC, Realme Chongqing Mobile Technology Corp, Elasizer S.R.L., Bytedance LTD, Entercom Operations Inc., Roger LLC, Rebel Athletic Inc., Rebellion Design Company, Tenro AG, Alpha Opco LLC, Roost R, Reverse2k LLC,

subcon959 said:
I'm assuming they lose a lot of these frivolous claims as those logos are not even remotely similar.
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Out of all the ones mentioned in the article, It Takes Two is the only one that's been resolved, I believe. A lot of them are more recent. That one with the logos was only filed on November 15.
 
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AbyssalMonkey

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It's not that I don't hate Take-Two Interactive, but in this scenario, it's not really their fault. The US legal system requires Trademarks to be actively and litigiously defended from anything that could possibly be construed as similar.

I hate Take-Two as much as everyone else, but they're not the problem this time, the US is.
 
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SexiestManAlive

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i never imagined there would be a company worse then nintendo when it came to copyright, the thing is, they dont have to change shit, cause im pretty sure you cant copyright words like this
 
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In the end this will obviously serve to do more to bring the game to people's attention than almost anything else they've done so far, so everyone wins, really.
 

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