R stands for Registered Trademark: Take-Two vs Remedy

Take-Two Interactive has formally lodged an opposition against Remedy Entertainment’s trademark application concerning their recently designed logo. The argument presented by them suggests that there is a significant resemblance between the new logo and the iconic Rockstar Games ‘R’, potentially leading to confusion which if you look closely is not confusing at all.

Looking at the two logos below, I really can’t see what the fuss is all about. This whole situation is a little bizarre as over recent years Remedy and Take-Two have had a great working relationship and they are currently working on remaking the first two Max Payne games together.

Take-Two is very aggressive about protecting its trademark properties, in 2021 they opposed Hazelight Studios’ trademark filing for It Takes Two. I mean that one makes sense, however, this new opposition to a logo I can’t understand as the letter “R” can’t be trademarked completely.

The narrow scope of protection

According to Reggster, a law firm providing sophisticated online services for trademark applications states the below which explains the similarity of this case:

While letters can be registered as word and figurative trademarks, their scope of protection is quite limited. Registering a figurative single-letter trademark usually does not enable you to block other figurative trademarks consisting of the same letter, provided that the stylization is different.

Below are two examples of cases where it was held that the single-letter trademarks were sufficiently dissimilar.

Remedy and Take-Two have requested an extension, which has been pushed out until September 6, 2025. Hopefully this gets resolved soon as the industry is already going through layoffs and we don’t need trademark disputes.

SOURCE: Reggster