On the advice of one of my very wise friends, I decided to mix things up a bit today, and take a look at some of the many trademarks that have been filed this month with the US Patent and Trademark office.

Searching the database is kind of a way of life for those of us who like to practice in this field, so this will help me get some practice in, as well as get some interesting information about who is attempting to protect what right now.

A total of 16706 trademarks were filed in January, at least through the end of the day on Friday. There were 4057 trademark applications filed this month in either class 41 or 9. Class 41 is the “educational or entertainment” services, while 9 covers computer hardware. Of those, 538 used the words “game” or “gaming” as part of the description of goods or services they offered, while 775 purported to be “online” in some fashion. Looking a bit past the obvious, there were 103 trademarks filed this month that were only designs. That means there was no words or symbols that were discernible, and that the whole trademark was a picture.

Looking a bit deeper, the great and powerful Microsoft filed three trademarks last month, while Nintendo filed 16, and 67 were filed by assorted companies with some variation of “game” in their corporate nomenclature. Keep in mind that each trademark application costs around $300 per class of goods (you can file one application that uses several classes) so it’s a good indication that the gaming industry is thriving. By contrast there were only 107 applications for legal goods or services last month. Kind of makes you think a bit, yeah?

In a conversation with a board game player this weekend, we discussed the phenomenon of games and their expansions, and the weird trend of game developers, both board and video, to follow the same trend with expansions.

The first expansion to a game usually fixes any major errors, adds a bit of content, and improves the multiplayer aspect. The second expansion, however, is not quite enough content for a new game, but is generally when the toolkit is released so those players who prefer sandbox play can enjoy themselves by generating their own content.

This allows the game developer to repackage the three titles together for later adopters, and gives the 15% of hardcore fans  a way to fill the time until the full sequel by creating their own content. It’s not always the second expansion, and for console games there’s little point, but usually the developer releases the devkit just before they do a complete overhaul, because the next game will use a different engine, and there’s little competition between the titles.