UNDERSCORED: Ubisoft has filed an 'express abandonment' of the Watch_Dogs trademark without official explanation.

The US Patent and Trademark Office have posted a document that says an Ubisoft petition asking the organisation for "express abandonment" of the trademark for its Watch_Dogs title is a fraud.

"A fraudulent Request for Express Abandonment was recently filed in connection with Application Serial No. 85642398," the documents said.

"The Request for Express Abandonment purports to be signed by the Chief Executive Officer of Ubisoft Entertainment, Yves Guillemot.

"Mr Guillemot, however, did not sign the Request for Express Abandonment, nor did Ubisoft Entertainment file the Request for Express Abandonment. The Request for Express Abandonment is fraudulent and was not filed by Ubisoft Entertainment or its representative."

Ubisoft had originally trademarked the term in June 2012, just before the game Watch_Dogs was revealed at E3 that same year. Watch_Dogs, with an underscore, has never been trademarked.

The USPTO has not yet issued a notice of abandonment, as requested by the original (and purportedly fradulent) request.

Watch_Dogs, an open-world, science-fiction action game set in a dystopian, almost Orwellian near future, was originally scheduled for release in November last year, alongside the next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony.

No updated date has yet been provided for the game, beyond "after the start of the next fiscal year" - which, in Ubisoft's case, begins April 1st.

We'll continue to bring you new information on this story as it develops.

-NZGamer.com