To any journalists reading this: Many Nintendo trademark applications you saw in the US and Japan are not “renewals”, but for different reasons.
Ⅰ. NoA has been filing Section 66(a) applications to extend protection of international trademarks into the US, even when the same trademarks are already registered here. Take “EVER OASIS” for example, it was registered in 2017 (img 1 below) and isn’t up for renewal yet; the application that made the news recently was filed on 2026-08-18 for §66(a) specifically (img 2). Paper Mario Color Splash and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE are other recent §66(a) applications. Also note that Nintendo’s been doing the same in some other territories too. See the Ever Oasis example in Canada (imgs 3-4).
[Section below updated on 2026-10-05]
Ⅱ. In Japan, Nintendo’s been steadily filing trademark applications for the English names of past games, even though their Japanese names are already trademarked and don’t need to be renewed. A few recent examples include:
- SWAPDOODLE, filed on 2026-09-25 ↔ イラスト交換日記, 2016-11-22
- DRILL DOZER, 2026-09-14 ↔ スクリューブレイカー 轟振どりるれろ, 2005-05-30
- BATTALION WARS, 2026-05-21 ↔ 突撃！！ファミコンウォーズ, 2005-09-08
Generally speaking, these are boring legal maneuvers for boring legal reasons, and probably not very newsworthy.
(Image sources in alt text)
[Originally posted on 2026-10-03 Pacific Time]
