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Square-Enix Trade Mark Approved in.. Oman

August 9th, 2005 | Posted in Uncategorized

Finally… well, not that we knew about it before, but the application was made all the way in 2003 as stated at the bottom of the announcement. Even though I have studied quite a bit about Trade Marks but I have minimum knoweldge of how the application is made in practice.

Anyway, it is quite pleasing to see that we do exist on the scene and that for whatever reason, Square-Enix believes that they could guarantee, or hope to guarantee, their intellectual property in Oman via TM registeration, this means that they do consider it as a possible market for their products. For those that do not know, Square-Enix is the company formed upon the merger of Squaresoft (the makers of the flagship RPG series Final Fantasy) and Enix (the makers of Final Fantay’s greatest opponent: the Dragon Quest series). Though more people in our area might know about Final Fantasy, or might’ve at least heard the name somewhere, Dragon Quest is actually more successful series in Japan, that game is phenomenal in the East, the governemt had to pass a law in Japan to prohibit the release of this game on a working day because the whole of Japanese nation will leave their offices, miss school, and just do anything to get their hands on this game on the first day it gets released… (The Japanese take their videogames quite seriesly!)

I have no idea if Squaresoft or Enix had their TMs registered in Oman before the merger, however, registering their TMs does not mean that we are going to get an Arabic version of any of their games any time soon, but who knows, can’t we dream of Arabic manuals at least, please! Sqeenix, please, if you believe that there is a market for you over here, and I know you do because you did register your TM here, can’t you release something in here officially? We can start slowely, lets just get a game with an Arabic manual, and then maybe you can release your DVDs here, and if you can, we would love to have OSTs, and mice mattresses, other electronic devices, parts and peripherals, sun glasses and other glasses, electronic circuts, magnetics tapes, magnetic disks, optical disks, cartidges of read-only memory, and other forms of memory on which home videogames are recorded, and just the whole list of category 9 merchandise/services that you have required to have a trade mark on, come on! Otherwise, if you are not planning to officially release anything here then don’t you come sue other people that copy your products, because you never wished to give us anything, and we hate you for this, yes we do! *breaks down crying…*

I am surprised that this actually took all this time, I remember that I saw the approved TM application for the Sony PSP when I came back for Christmas, and the Sony PSP was officially announced years after 2003, wasn’t it?

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  • mochu
    hello Guys


    can anybody tell me how much a psp costs in oman



    i am new here, could you also tell me where it is available for a good price.



    thanks

    regards

    Rajesh kamath
  • Blue Chi
    Devilish, LOL, whatever. :P
  • Devilish
    "JAPANESE company will not register a TM in OMAN because it has plans to trade in the US and the UK."


    What makes u so sure !? Try emailing them, u might get an interesting answer.
  • Blue Chi
    Devilish, a JAPANESE company will not register a TM in OMAN because it has plans to trade in the US and the UK. It does not make sense, they will have to submit a whole different application form that they will have to pay for and they will have to keep paying more money periodically to renew their TM registration. They will only waste their money because they have commercial interest in that area. It is normal for companies that use the Madrid Protocol not to apply for a TM in all the MP list, simply because they cannot afford to register/renew their TM all over the world, this is the commercial reality of it.


    Secondly, if there is this worldwide product that is registered, or is not registered, lets say Coca Cola, it is registered all over the world, but lets say not in Oman, a random Omani person would not / should not (I'm not sure about the specific law in Oman) be able to register it as a TM because he would be taking unfair advantage of an internationally known mark. Marks that are not registered still have a legal protection under the laws of "Passing Off".
  • Devilish
    ur welcome.


    Yeah, I’ve read all that about Madrid Protocol, I mentioned it as a sort of system that ease TM registration, regardless of the fact that Oman is a member or not. Oman is not a member of the OPEC, does that mean we shouldn’t talk about the OPEC !? I hope u wont ask me now why I brought OPEC up. Cant Omani companies utilize Madrid Protocol !?



    Anyhow, presume Z got a Juice business, n Z sell it under the TM of “PurpleK”. Z only registered “PurpleK” in the GCC for the current time. On the other side of the globe, JJ copied Z “PurpleK” product, n registered it before Z internationally in each, n every country in the world apart from the GCC. Now, when Z wana venture internationally with their business, after God knows how many years or decades, Z cant !? coz JJ owns the TM “PurpleK” in most of the countries globally, so Z either picks another TM, or pay JJ royalties for using their officially registered TM.



    Now why did I mention the above example !? u already got the picture.
  • Blue Chi
    Devilish, thanks on replying, your one of the best people that visit my weblog because: (1) you READ it, (2) you reply! :D


    Anyway, back to our topic, I would like to point out that the Madrid Protocol does NOT grant you a global/international TM, it is merely a BUNDLE APPLICATION FORM for the participating countries. The fact that you APPLY for a collection of countries in one go does not mean that your application will be accepted in all of these countries and even if the TM was registered in these countries, you will have a separate TM for each country, there is no such thing as a collective TM. Effectively, the Madrid Protocal is a shorter way of applying as you will not have to physically GO to the specified country or contact their individual TM office, it is not necessarily cheaper as the applications fee depends on what countries you would like to apply for (Again, you choose what countries you want to apply for when you fill in the Madrid Protocol Application Form). In other words, one will have to pay for each country on its own, and will have to pick what countries they want to apply for.



    I am not sure of how you can even mention this when Oman is not a member of the Madrid Protocol anyway. :S



    Logically, why would you want to pay all the fees to apply for a TM and then periodically renew the fees in each and every country when you have no interest in trading there? Why do you think that they want 'to insure that no one else owns the specific TM' in that speicifid jurisdiction, it is because they have commercial interest in that area.Especially when you SPECIFY that you want to have a TM in Oman and not Yemen (for example).
  • Devilish
    Yes, I did mention “in each, n every country they registered their trademark.” That’s what I meant by “register their trade mark globally”. Anyhow, The Madrid Protocol which covers around 60 countries allows u to register ur TM with one single application for all its members, hence the 60 countries.


    Now, in which law does it say that if u register a TM in XZY country, then it means u have to conduct business in that country !? It might be applicable in some countries, but I don’t think all !? I think the only reason for registering a TM globally is to insure that no one else owns the specific TM !?
  • Blue Chi
    Devilish, registering a TM in some country is a proof of some commercial interest, there is no such thing as a global TM, you will have to go and register in every country you are interested in. The ones that freak us out are those sudden ones that you see of an already established internationally known product, the product has already been known all around the globe and has been registered in all the major countries, when you see it 'suddenly' registered in a place like Oman the only explaination for this is some plan by the company to trade in the area, if not Oman in specific, the GCC or the Middle East in general. Some of these plans take a long time, others never make it as it seems, but there is no other explaination for a company to waste to some company to pay for a TM reg and continue to pay to renew it for that certain country if they have no intention of trading in that area, eg. when a TM for an restaurant is registered that has no other explaination other than a plan by the owners to start a branch in Oman, however, that does not have to be soon. You cannot register a TM to block others from using if you do not have the intention to use the TM in that jurisdiction, that's why there is the renewal process. (don't know about the period in Oman.)
  • Devilish
    Any company with a global perspective will register their trade mark globally. However, that need not oblige them to actually sell their product in each, n every country they registered their trademark. It’s just about preserving their copyrights as u conveyed in ur post. Some local companies in Oman went through the same process, when they wanted to venture globally.
  • muscati
    A lot of companies go through the trouble of registering their trade mark in Oman but never enter the market. I used to get excited when companies I like or product I like get registered thinking that it must mean that they will soon be available in Oman. I learned the hard way to stop expecting that.
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