US Trademark for PS4/PS3/PS Vita JRPG Natural Doctrine Refused; Will a Title Change be Necessary?

Giuseppe Nelva January 5, 2014 4:42 PM EST

Kadokawa Games is working on the cross platform strategy JRPG Natural Doctrine, that will be released in Japan on March the 19th for PS4, PS3 and PS Vita.

The game will possibly see a western release, as Kadokawa Games filed for the registration of the trademark in the US, or at least tried to.

Earlier in December the application for the trademark, originally made in August, was refused by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, as you can see in the screencap below.

Digging deeper in the case, we found the documentation, that states that the reason for the refusal is a possible confusion with an existing trademark for “Doctrine.” The problem probably lies in the fact that trademark classes are very generic, and due to a rather funny and random association video game software is in the same class 9 as Doctrine’s “Pre-recorded CDs, video tapes, laser disks and DVDs featuring heavy metal orchestra and heavy metal musical band.”

The refusal action is also classified as “non-final,” meaning that Kadokawa can still appeal the decision if it so wishes.

At the moment we don’t know if Kadokawa will pursue an appeal and try to push for the Natural Doctrine name, or will simply change it with something else. What we do know is that they have until May 3rd to respond. We’ll keep you posted if we find out anything relevant in the upcoming months.