A few years ago Sony managed to briefly abandon The Last Guardian trademark, but all was rectified within a day with the company filing for a new application. Now Sony has managed to find itself in the same situation, as this new trademark has been abandoned according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Mark: THE LAST GUARDIAN
US Serial Number: 85700141 Application Filing Date: Aug. 09, 2012
Register: Principal
Mark Type: Trademark, Service Mark
Status: Abandoned because no Statement of Use or Extension Request timely filed after Notice of Allowance was issued. To view all documents in this file, click on the Trademark Document Retrieval link at the top of this page.
Status Date: Feb. 16, 2015
Publication Date: Nov. 20, 2012
Notice of Allowance Date: Jan. 15, 2013
Date Abandoned: Feb. 16, 2015
The reason the abandonment happened was because Sony hasn’t submitted an extension request in time. There’s no need to panic as this is likely an administration error on Sony’s part, and I’m willing to bet that a new application will be filled out again. The company has confirmed The Last Guardian is still  in development numerous times, despite very little information about it being released since its announcement.
I’m sure if Sony were to cancel one of its most anticipated IPs then there would have been a bigger announcement than this.
UPDATE:Â Sony have confirmed to VideoGamer that The Last Guardian is still in development, yet haven’t said the reason for dropping the trademark.
hazelam
at this point, i could the Roswell aliens being released before The Last Guardian.
gazzagb
The Last Guardian: FinallyTM
Lieutenant Fatman
I think most of us have given up on this game now, as much as I loved Ico and SotC. If it does arrive one day then hurray! But for the time being I am happy to forget it exists.
TSBonyman
Releasing on Android devices today – The Last Guardian flappy bird clone.
Scythegpd
Alan Wake was almost vapourware at one stage and ended up being one of my favourite games from last gen.
I’ll hold out hope for this!
leeroye
I have to agree, it was supposed to be a 360 launch title but came out some 4 years later i believe. It was a brilliant game well worth the wait.
The Lone Steven
To be brutally honest and i’m talking Kratos Levels of brutality, i kinda lost all interest in the Last Guardian. It doesn’t even register on my radar any more and if it is ever released, there is a strong chance of the hype damaging the product. Duke Nukem Forever suffered from years of development hell and the hype that was generated by the wait. And we all know how bad that ended up. But hopefully, TLG will be decent when Sony eventually release it.
Besides, everyone knows that The Last Guardian 2:Definitive Edition will be far better then The Last Guardian 1.
bunimomike
Making this one The Penultimate Guardian. Ah… that’s why they didn’t keep the name.
mugsybalone
If only Square had that foresight when they released Final Fantasy, eh?
Matroska_
In reference to mugsybalone: You know, I never really got why it was seen as so silly that there are multiple Final Fantasies. I mean, I know how at face value something with “final” in the title followed by a number showing there have been several seems funny. But if you think about it, they’re all different stories in different worlds (admittedly with a few exceptions more recently) so they’re all the “final” thing in that world and are all about the end of the world in that setting being averted by your actions (though in FF6 it does actually end…)
It’d be like a series of love stories called “First Love”. Each one is about a different couple who have fallen in love for the first time, perhaps even in a different fictional setting. You’d be looking forward to First Love 15 now. The thing is, they would indeed all be about “first love”, it would be 15 different stories about first loves.
mugsybalone
That’s a fair analysis of the FF series’ naming structure – my comment was merely a lighthearted one following on from Mike’s Penultimate Guardian/Last Guardian comment. Isn’t the overlap in worlds older than the more recent games though – obviously with the few XIII’s we’ve had, didn’t VII have a couple of shared-world spinoffs (Dirge of Cerberus & Crisis Core)?
The Lone Steven
They called Final Fantasy because they were at risk of going bankrupt or only had enough cash for one game and pulled an All or Nothing move with it thus calling it Final Fantasy as a cynical injoke.
Matroska_
I wish you could reply to a reply…
Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to come across like I was having a go at you. I knew you were just joking, but people say it so often I just had to chime in. You’re right about VII having a sequel in the form of Dirge of Cerberus, I believe Crisis Core was a prequel. There’s also Before Crisis (another prequel) and you could count a few non-game spin-offs too.
I suppose what I mean is that the core stories tend to be around the end of the world, that’s one way of construing the title. I guess they’re then in a funny position where they can’t NOT use the same title for spin-offs because it’s all about brand recognition then (e.g. they wouldn’t want to release a game simply called Dirge of Cerberus without the FF in the title). Also, they’re technically all part of the same apocalyptic story (albeit retconned in for further profits).
Anyway, Last Guardian! Sorry for the brief derail.
Forrest_01
You can reply to a reply. You just can’t reply to a reply of a reply. :/
Now my eyes hurt from repeated use of a single word.
Forrest_01
Also, if you wanted to reply to mugsy & still have it in line with the conversation, you could have just replied to your own comment. This would sort the response under mugsy’s comment (due to time logged), so the conversation continues.
Like if you wanted to reply to this comment for example, you could just reply to my initial reply (still with me?) & that would post your comment underneath this one.
I know what I mean anyway. ;)