‘Eternal Darkness’ Game Updates: Nintendo Files New Trademark Application
"Eternal Darkness" is a psychological horror game that messes up the mind of the character and the player. It can make players think that their system is turned off and sometimes it would crash which resulted for the players to believe it's a trick so they would spend several minutes waiting for the game to come back.
"Eternal Darkness" is considered as one of the most popular games for the Nintendo system. And it may return very soon with the Nintendo Switch. Recent news broke that Nintendo filed a new trademark application for "Eternal Darkness" game in the United States. According to Nintendo Everything, this is not the first time that they've seen a trademark to "Eternal Darkness."
According to NeoGAF user "Rösti", the new trademark for the "Eternal Darkness" game with a serial number of 86017853 was filed with the USPTO on July 23, 2013. The new trademark is the same to Nintendo's prior trademark for the intellectual property with a serial number of 77932350.
A few years ago, there has also been a filing of the trademark. However, that trademark only lasts until the end of the year. If this happens, Nintendo will need to provide a Statement of Use if the company does not want to lose the application.
The new and old Eternal Darkness trademarks have slight differences. Some trademarks had a 1B filling that is an application based on intent to use. However, that doesn't mean that the game will have a sequel. Nintendo is aiming to protect the name or is interested in something like a Virtual Console release.
The 2010 trademark for the game was granted its fifth extension in December 2012. Hence, the new filling is more of Nintendo's taking steps in extending their ownership of the IP. The new filling was also updated to protect against any potential infringement from Precursor Games' Shadow of the Eternals project.