Take-Two Interactive and Remedy Entertainment are in a dispute over the letter R

16.01.2024 - 16:47 / rockpapershotgun.com / Rockstar Games / Interactive

Alright, alright, they're in a disupte over the letter R as used for a logo for a video game company. As spotted by Respawn First, Remedy (they of the Alan Wake) revealed their new logo last year, a big letter R, and Take-Two (they of the owning Rockstar Games) contest it. Rockstar's logo is also a big letter R, although I think they're pretty different Rs.

This is, it should be noted, old news. Remedy revealed their logo in April last year and appear to have filed the trademark application in May. Anyone opposing your trademark has three months to do so, and it looks like Take-Two had that window extended a couple of times by giving notice that they intended to file opposition, before officially slapping the opposition down in September (per the publicly-viewable UK Intellectual Property Office).

Right now the dispute is in the "cooling off period", which is where the European Union Intellectual Property Office ask the parties to just try to figure it out, okay?? But the point is, though this is a months old petty grievance, someone has spotted it now, so I get to sort of snicker about it.

I understand that there are important reasons that companies will protect their trademarks, of course, and I don't really understand the legal limits of how similar things can be, but when it gets to quibbling over the letter R it prompts me to think "Who owns letters? Does God own letters??" and things like that. Especially because, aside from being capital R letters, they're a different font, and Rockstar's has a little star on it and Remedy's is all, you know, messed up and fractured. There's only so much you can do with a letter R (which I suppose is Take-Two's point, but it took them five months to write that down so one would hope there's more to it). Perhaps I'm biased because Take-Two has a history of maybe being a bit aggressive with this sort of thing.

It's the sort of dispute I tend to take a dim view of, if I'm honest, as there are easy examples that feel less like they might be a legitimate point of confusion for consumers, and more like a big company throwing their weight around a bit. Is it really the case that anyone buying Control 2 will see the new Remedy logo and think it was made by Rockstar, or get GTA 6 and think it was Remedy, and be really confused? I say: no, probably not. Then again, Remedy are working with Rockstar on that Max Payne 1 and 2 remake, so maybe Take-Two don't trust our ability to recognise two Rs in a row as being not the same R. At least Remedy is on a more level playing field to fight their corner than a tiny indie company, whether or not their corner is the right one.

But it's interesting to think about where ownership of certain words, letters, or ideas start or end.