Hi guys,

I was looking into possibilities of registering the name of a potential game as a trademark (brand). If I read it correctly (WIPO, Madrid agreement), it will costs some 5 figures amount for world wide (and a few hundreds for just a country or region). Which makes me wonder, do smaller studios and/or indies actually do this?

If not, I guess one can have a scenario where an indie team comes up with a great game name, and some big studio simply pays for the trademark of that name and grabs it (and the indie is screwed).

On forums I also read that people often just register a .com with the game's name, so they have at least something. With which most teams/people get away it (because it's not often a game's name is reused).

Just curious on thoughts and/or how you would approach this.

cozzie said:
I was looking into possibilities of registering the name of a potential game as a trademark (brand). If I read it correctly (WIPO, Madrid agreement), it will costs some 5 figures amount for world wide (and a few hundreds for just a country or region). Which makes me wonder, do smaller studios and/or indies actually do this?

No. Even big ones may not register a trademark until a title has been in the market for a while. Using the mark in trade is what validates a trademark. Do try your best to make sure your title is unique enough that you won't be sued for infringing someone else's already-extant trademark. I am not a lawyer, etc.

Thanks both, good advice. I'll continue thinking about naming, I guess everybody has a feeling that the name he finds is so cool and unique that it needs protection ?

Finding a name that's not yet in use for a game is relatively easy these days, with Google and internet.
I won't go through the hassle and 1000s of dollars for now ?. I guess getting the .com with the name also helps (make unregistered trademark)