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PSP Trademarking

PSP

6th June 2005, 10:18pm
Videogames giant Sony Computer Entertainment's has been in the middle of concerns regarding imports of the company's new console - the Playstation Portable (PSP) on the Internet. Retailers selling the new PSP console have all received Cease and Desist orders from solicitors representing Sony. They're claiming infringement of Trade Mark despite its failure to secure vital Trade Marks in Europe.

The Cease and Desist orders refer only to the 'PlayStation' trademark, since key technologies, trademarks and software utilised in Sony's new portable gaming platform have not even been registered by Sony. Some of them are even held by rivals to the company!

For instance, the name PSP is a trademark currently registered by Owtanet Limited in 2000, UMD (or Universal Media Disks - Sony's proprietary format) are owned by Olympus Corporation, and XMB (a PSP operating system component), which hasn't been registered by anyone. Sony's failure to secure these trademarks could potentially lead to further delays to the European launch of the PSP, or could result in the costly re-branding of a product which has already proved to be a hit in the US and Japan. It could also mean the start of another legal case for Sony Computer Entertainment - they recently paid over $90 million in damages to Immersion Corporation for violating "haptic feedback" patents for the 'Dual Shock' PS2 controller.

As such, the European release has been pushed to September, and we can expect the Australian release to follow suit.
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by Nick Schaedel » Author's Blog