Just four days after it was abandoned, Ubisoft’s trademark of Watch Dogs with the United States Patent and Trademark Office was reinstated after a petition for reinstatement was granted and upheld by the Director of the USPTO.

The USPTO’s case report for the petition to withdraw abandonment indicated that the Director of the USPTO deemed the need to reverse the abandonment constituted extraordinary circumstances.

In explaining the decision, the Director of the USPTO does not indicate that any conclusive evidence that the request for express abandonment that cause this situation was actually fraudulent. However, the declaration of Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot that he did not sign the express abandonment request was taken into consideration in evaluating the petition.

The USPTO’s case report read in part:

Although the request appears to have been sent by petitioner, petitioner declared that it did not submit the request and has every reason to believe that this filing was fraudulent.  The Director finds the application should not have been abandoned.

So it’s good news for Ubisoft in the stretch run to the release of Watch Dogs. Still, we haven’t had many updates or new video footage of the game for months which is troubling. Sure, the vertical slice I saw at Fan Expo looked good but you could tell it needed a lot of work (like making sure foot traffic didn’t clip through bridges).

Now that Ubisoft has settled the state of its intellectual property rights, how about focusing on the state of your game.

Source: USPTO

Related: Ubisoft Loses Watch Dogs Trademark to “Fraudulent” Abandonment Request