Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds, the upcoming expansion to February’s critically acclaimed open-world game, has had its trademark suspended after a filing from a mobile game company.
Guerrilla Games’ early 2017 hit has had its name placed on hold after receiving a suspension notice from Huuuge Global Limited, who published a slot machine game on both the iOS App Store and Google Play called The Frozen Wild. Though both the mobile game and Horizon Zero Dawn‘s expansion share little in common save for their name, this similarity has caused Sony’s trademark for The Frozen Wilds to be suspended.
The portion of the filing outlining the suspension can be viewed below:
“The trademark examining attorney is suspending action on the application for the reason(s) stated below. See 37 C.F.R. §2.67; TMEP §§716 et seq.
The effective filing date of the pending application(s) identified below precedes the filing date of applicant’s application. If the mark in the referenced application(s) registers, applicant’s mark may be refused registration under Section 2(d) because of a likelihood of confusion with that registered mark(s). See 15 U.S.C. §1052(d); 37 C.F.R. §2.83; TMEP §§1208 et seq. Therefore, action on this application is suspended until the earlier-filed referenced application(s) is either registered or abandoned. 37 C.F.R. §2.83(c). A copy of information relevant to this referenced application(s) is attached.
– Application Serial No(s). 87466907
The USPTO will periodically conduct a status check of the application to determine whether suspension remains appropriate, and the trademark examining attorney will issue as needed an inquiry letter to applicant regarding the status of the matter on which suspension is based. TMEP §§716.04, 716.05. Applicant will be notified when suspension is no longer appropriate. See TMEP §716.04.”
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Filed last month but only recently spotted by NeoGAF user Rosti, the filing was published on October 17th, with Sony yet to issue a formal response. The likely sequence of events could see Sony arguing that there will be no confusion between the two games given their inherent differences, but at the time of this writing Huuuge Global Limited’s notice has yet to be challenged.
