True Fantasy Live Online - Patent Application Made News

Back in June 2004, TVG reported on the news that True Fantasy Live Online had been canned; the game, which had been unveiled in 2002, had suffered a series of delays leading up to last yearâ??s announcement. Hereâ??s where the mystery begins - two months after the cancellation, Microsoft applied to the US Patent Office to trademark the name â??True Fantasy Live Onlineâ? under categories that included websites, strategy guidesâ?¦and videogames.

Two questions must surely be asked: Why didnâ??t Microsoft apply for the Trademark during the titleâ??s development, and more crucially, why would they apply for a patent for a game that had had been cancelled two months earlier?

This anomaly follows reports in April that the gameâ??s developer Level 5 were in the process of looking for a new publisher for the game â?“ leading to the obvious suggestion that the current action taken by Microsoft is nothing more than a clampdown on the name, therefore forcing Level 5 to change the title of their MMO.

Weâ??ll have more on this development shortly...