Activision trademarks Archives

Activision applied for several U.S. trademarks this past week related to Call of Duty: Black Ops II which is scheduled to be released this November. The trademark applications include “The Roman Numeral II”, “The Future is Black” and “There’s a Soldier in All of Us”.

Activision submitted two trademark applications (85673176, 85673166) for “The Roman Numeral II” which, of course, can be seen in the cover-art for the video game in a solid orange color.

“The Future is Black” is a tagline for the game and was used in the official reveal trailer that was published back in the beginning of May. The filing (Serial Number: 85673145) like the others in the batch, covers computer game software and entertainment services.

The company looks to be protecting its IP as it ramps up marketing ahead of the game’s release.

“There’s a soldier in all of us” has been a tagline for Black Ops since the first game released worldwide in November 2010. The trademark application (Serial Number: 85673131) was filed along with the others on July 10.

If you haven’t seen the official reveal trailer, you can watch it below.

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

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.]

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