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News Trademarks Video Games

Activision Publishing reapplies for ‘Sing Hero’ trademark with the USPTO

Sing Hero

Hinting that a possible karaoke title is on the horizon, Activision Publishing has reapplied for its trademark on ‘Sing Hero’, a trademark it first filed back in 2009.

Unlike the old trademark, the new trademark (Serial Number: 85740335) covers computer game software for use on, “mobile and cellular phones, personal digital assistants, electronic organizers and electronic notepads, handheld computers, and portable and handheld digital electronic devices”.

The revived trademark comes at a time when popular singing shows like X Factor and The Voice compete for viewers.  NBC’s The Sing-Off was cancelled earlier this year after three seasons.

Activision has not said anything official about Sing Hero.

The company’s trademarks on Keyboard Hero and Drum Hero were declared “Dead” in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

A quick search across major domain names shows that only the .com and .net have been registered at the time of this story.  Whereas domains for its once popular Guitar Hero title are all taken from GuitarHero.com to GuitarHero.de.  Neither the .com nor the .net appear to be registered by Activision.

The Facebook and Twitter vanity URLs are also taken, but appear unrelated and have little or no information.

Talking about this story:  Gameranx and NowGamer

(Image of France MW3 launch via Activision.com)

Categories
News Trademarks Video Games

Activision files trademark for The Blast Furnace game, privately acquires domain

The Blast Furnace

Activision Publishing, Inc. filed a trademark application on April 18, 2012, for “The Blast Furnace” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The goods and services in the trademark filing (Serial Number: 85601232) cover “computer game software” and “Entertainment services, namely, providing an on-line computer game”.

In addition to the trademark filing, it appears Activision has privately acquired the related domain name, theblastfurnace.com (Whois), through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.  Activision is a client of MarkMonitor.

In March 2012, the domain name <theblastfurnace.com> was registered to domain investor Frank Schilling’s Name Administration Inc.  In April, the name transferred to DNStination, Inc., the Whois privacy service provided by MarkMonitor.

I’ve reached out to Frank Schilling via e-mail to see if any details about the transaction can be shared and I will update this story if I hear back.

At the time of this writing, Activision has made no announcement regarding “The Blast Furnace”.

[Update 1 at 8:30pm EST:. After a little digging on DomainNameSales, the online marketplace that features premium domain names from Frank Schilling’s private collection and other investors, it appears the domain name sold for anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 USD.  The sale was reported on April 19, 2012.]

Talking about this story:  VG247, @supererogatory, NowGamer, Lazygamer, Strategy Informer, games.on.net, HardGamers, Gamestrend, Hardgame2.com, gameswelt.de, GamePro, Multiplayer.it, Shacknews, MCV and allgamesbeta.com