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In a lesson in how it's important to understand the murky waters that is copyright law, one developer learned the hard way that having the trademark to "Glover" doesn't actually give you the right to make Glover 2.

Melvin Zatink, an avowed fan of the 1999 platformer Glover, was very excited when he announced that his studio, Golden Mushroom, would be making Glover 2 for the Nintendo Switch.

Remember Glover? It's not back sadly. Not even in pog form.

The news was met with skepticism on the Switch subreddit where Zatink first made the announcement. For good reason as Piko Interactive would late make clear. Piko is another game developer and publishing company, but more importantly, Piko Interactive owns the rights to Glover.

"In January we we set us a goal to license Glover. We paid expensive lawyers for this trademark research," said Zatink to Kotaku. Hasbro's Glover trademark lapsed in the U.S. and Europe and so Zatink and Golden Mushroom scooped it up, and the team began development for Glover 2 in March after purchasing the trademark transfer.

Here's the thing: trademarks aren't copyrights. The rights to Glove IP still belong to Piko Interactive which purchased the copyright in 2017 from Atari SA, who bought the rights from Hasbro Interactive in 2001.

Piko reached out to Golden Mushroom on social media, but Golden Mushroom's website, Reddit account, and social media shut down. Those accounts are back up, and according to Zatink in an email to Kotaku only went down because of a hack.

Unfortunately in that time Golden Mushroom and Piko couldn't come to an agreement over the Glover IP which Golden Mushroom tried to license. And yesterday Golden Mushroom announced that, after being denied the Glover license, will settle for making a "spiritual successor" to Glover.

"To lose GLover is very painful for us. I think the best way to keep a positive mindset is to have the mind that nobody is perfect, even lawyers make mistakes."

So there you have it. While the Glover copyright is alive, there will not be a Glover 2 from Golden Mushroom for the Switch. Another day in the confusing world of copyright law.