"New" Suikoden Trademark

[ttfii]

ESRB is pretty reliable as far as leaking games goes. I see that Alundra and Arc the Lad has popped up recently!

Some games don't pop up until after the fact though. Tomb Raider was on PSone Classics for about a week before showing up on ESRB. Other games pop up, are taken off, and then show up later. I remember seeing Final Fantasy VII on there but then it was taken off. A while later, Sony announced it was coming to PSone Classics at E3. Then it showed up again.

In any case, I'll definitely buy it once it hits the PSN. I remember getting Suikoden II for Christmas '99. My copy lasted for quite some time before meeting its end. I'm not about to dish out $85-120 for another copy either.

[eldrasidar]

Could this be a good prophecy for potential 'dynasty warriors' style Suikoden war battles on the way?

I don't know if I'd like that. I mean, dynasty warriors is great, but you pretty much have to do most of the work yourself, and I don't know if I like that as model for a suikoden war battle, as then you'd never have use to other characters besides whoever 6's incarnation of Georg Prime is. Also Dynasty Warriors fails at magic and ranged attacks. It would also mean having two fully developed combat systems. I would rather see something closer to ogre battle 64's system for war combat, which would essentially be a hybrid of suikoden 3 and suikoden 5, for those of you unfamiliar with it.(if you are unfamiliar with it, and have a Wii, I recommend downloading it. It was one of best games on the N64 IMHO)

[Antimatzist]

ESRB is pretty reliable as far as leaking games goes. I see that Alundra and Arc the Lad has popped up recently!

Wow, this is pretty cool. Might try to get them...

Well, when exactly will this trademark thing wear off?

[Hirathien]

Thought it cost money to register a trademark?

And is it 100% sure that they can't announce the next Suikoden outside of TGS?

[Raww Le Klueze]

Of course they can announce whenever and wherever, but Suikoden IV, Tactics, V and Tierkreis all followed the pattern of announcement right before TGS and then reveal at TGS, so most people look to TGS. There's no way of guessing any other time.

Suppose they could announce something on December 15th on the anniversary of the first games release, but it would have made far more sense to release something then.

[LanceHeart]

That's cutting it extremely close for the trademark (on-the-day close, actually). Then again, Konami DID send the needed corrections to the USPTO on the last day they possibly could.

There's always the possibility that Konami is going to let the trademark die, but that's a lot of effort and money (to the tune of $325 down the drain for the application itself, plus manpower hours) invested on a project they would subsequently cancel after they felt confident enough to move forward with in America.

Don't forget that the trademark specifically states that it's related to video games rather than being a simple book of some kind. We all know that they ported Suikoden to mobile platforms in Japan, so that might be another option. Sony also announced last week that they're launching a PSOne Imports section *next week*. Problem is, those games aren't translated at all which is a very real hamper in any Genso Suikoden/gaiden release.

[Rooks]

Re-reading this thread sparked an idea, so here it is:

Why was the original "Suikoden" trademark nixed? Did KOA let it expire? Did they change it intentionally? I doubt it. Rather, I believe that the original "Suikoden" trademark was found to be invalid, thus Konami was forced to change it to "Genso Suikoden."

Perhaps this is the case because -under public domain laws- you literally cannot trademark "Suikoden" in the US, because it is merely a translation of the Public Domain work "Water Margin." Thus the US trademark office ruled the "Suikoden" trademark invalid, as you cannot trademark something in the public domain.

What this would mean is that the new Genso Suikoden Trademark means almost nothing in the way of a new title, and is merely a reaction to a decision that was out of Konami's hands. I actually hope that I am not right about this, because this would lessen the chance of seeing a new title in the near future.

To explain more clearly:

Shui Hu Zhuan is the Chinese classic that Genso Suikoden is loosely based on. Since this novel's earliest print edition is dated round 1750 (though the novel was known to be in existence long before that) this puts it in what is called the "Public Domain," literally meaning that the novel is owned by the public at large and anyone can use it or reprint it. "Suikoden" is simply the Japanese Pronunciation of "Shui Hu Zhuan." As far as US law is concerned, anyone can use the Title and its common translations freely, so Shui Hu Zhuan, Suikoden, and Water Margin are all titles that cannot be copyrighted, because they already belong to the public.

The original "Suikoden" trademark may have slipped through the cracks and been approved as the original title simply because it is a Japanese title for what here in America is an obscure work of Chinese literature. However, Konami may have originally neglected to inform the US office of Suikoden's connection to Water Margin, thus more than a decade later the office invalidated the trademark when they learned of the origins of the word "Suikoden." This forced Konami to officially change the trademark designation to Genso Suikoden, which can be legally copyrighted.

I do not know too much about modern copyright law, so I could be entirely wrong here, but it at least sounds plausible to me.

[LanceHeart]

Trademarks are actually classified by what kind of content the mark is associated with. The Suikoden trademark would have little to no bearing on a republishing of a Japanese-to-English translation of The Water Margin, since it's not the same base material. If Konami were to contest a Suikoden trademark based on the actual book, they would definitely lose since their own trademarks are based entirely on video game based items.

Another such strange situation is actually present in Mega Man/Megaman. The trademark is actually registered twice by Capcom and MEGAMAN inc., both dealing with vastly different things: One is based on video games while the other is in lighting (used to be incandescent, now they've branched out). In one case, they're just registering the title of the games. In the other, they trademarked a logo that they print on their bulbs.

As for the original Suikoden trademark: it expired because they didn't publish anything under that exact name/trademark registration number for a set number of years, which in turn auto-expired the mark. It's why Suikoden was registered more than once and they had to register for separate trademarks when they brought over Suikoden Tactics and Suikoden Tierkreis.

[Rooks]

One other example would be Alexandre Dumas' "Three Musketeers." That novel is under public domain, but there is no problem if you want to create a Candy Bar and sell that. One the other hand, any novel that you might write with the Title "Three Musketeers" would have to give proper due to Dumas. That is, you would have to say: "Based on the novel 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexandre Dumas (P)' ".

So, copyrights are divided into sections, but literature, film, and games are all closely related. Hollywood has made sure of this -legally- in order to protect what they think is their intellectual property.

If I wanted to make a Three Musketeers film, I can go ahead and do that. If I wanted to make a Candy Bar, then I would be blocked. If I wanted to open a resturaunt chain called "Three Musketeers" . . . I actually don't know, that would be an area for lawyers and judges to decide.

Suikoden might be in that same grey area. That is that games and literature might be closely related enough to cause problems. It is nice to know that the original TM was not thrown out by the copyright office, but this might still explain why they went with Genso Suikoden instead.

In any event, the fact that I was wrong on that point is good news, this means that the new trademark might be part of a larger movement by Konami.

*edit*

Now that I have thought about it more, there is a copyright case pending. The International House of Pancakes v The International House of Prayer.

IHOP -the chain- is suing IHOP -the church- for copyright infringement. This case though has been decried by lawyers as not only a groundless case, but a PR nightmare for the chain. Honestly, I don't know what they were thinking.

[Xelinis]

Less than one month left for Konami to release something. December 15th to be exact, which is a very special date.

As there have been no major game announcements, my money is on something small, ranging from an artbook to game ports on iOS and/or Android. Either that, or the trademark goes belly up unless they fill out an Extension Request.

[ttfii]

Well... apparently Sony is revealing a new exclusive on December 12th. Close enough. Let's be hopeful...

[Xelinis]

I doubt that'll be it. Sony only does this sort of thing for their multi-million sellers. If Suikoden VI gets revealed anywhere, it'll be in Famitsu or another one of those Japanese game mags.

[LanceHeart]

It's starting to get very difficult to believe that this trademark has anything to do with a new game in the main series. My bet's on a mobile release at the best with the Genso Suikoden rebranding, since most mobile/iOS/Android game releases are often released the same day they're announced in North America.

As for "multi-million sellers", that's not exactly true. They tease announcements for sequels to their own games whether they're expected to be beyond huge or just good enough (see Resistance 2). An entire event for a new IP or a game that isn't Sony's? That's beyond unlikely.
Then again, they've been "HD remake"-happy of late, which could be them announcing a slew of HD collections. Once again, Suikoden is even less likely since the main series has been waning on the PS2 compared to its PSOne rise.

[Xelinis]

Two more days. Though, info from this week's Famitsu will hit the web tomorrow night so, if anything gets revealed at all, we'll hear about it then. At absolute bare minimum, there will probably be a "15 years ago today, Gensou Suikoden for PSX was released!" shout out.

[skymansxeno]

Yup. It's either Famitsu or bust. At least for a while.