Late last year, Star Wars fans got a heads-up about Galaxy of Adventures via a trademark application. While that might not seem super-exciting, looking at what a company is trademarking can give a hint as to what may be coming soon. Enter HBO and the world of Westeros.
As noted late last week by fan account @BloodmoonIrl on Twitter, here’s what HBO has trademarked lately. We here at WiC have verified that these are all appearing on the website TMView, which is run by the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office.
Here’s the list:
Granted, “The Long Night” is also, famously or infamously depending on who you ask, the name of an episode from Game of Thrones season 8, so it could be nothing more than some protection of a possible weak point in what’s overall a very valuable IP. What’s missing, however, is anything that has to do with what we currently know as Blood Moon.
Despite a logo appearing on set, it appears as though HBO hasn’t moved to grab any trademarks it can, although there might be some legal reasons why not. Bloodmoon as one word, for instance, is trademarked by ZeniMax Media, which is the holding company for Bethesda Softworks, among other gaming studios, and that trademark got renewed five years ago, meaning it’s still live. With the Game of Thrones prequel still in the pilot filming stages, there’s time for there to be some modifications to the name of the show or trademark finagling otherwise. (As a disclaimer, I am not a lawyer and especially not a lawyer who specializes in IP)
In other words, this doesn’t seem like a thing to be worried about. The logo certainly lends a lot of weight to the idea of this prequel series actually being named Blood Moon or Bloodmoon, and there’s a simple explanation for the trademark issue. For now, it seems best to keep calling it by that name. As I said when I started to theorize on what the name means, “we assume nothing.” For now, keep an eye on this.
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