Update: Ubisoft Alleges Fraud, Watch Dogs Trademark Restored

[Living_Brain]

"The development won't be affected" -Ubisoft

"I hope the development isn't affected!" -Readers

 

[Strazdas]

Wow thats one large troll there. so trademark is officially abandoned now, that means someone can actually legally come up and snatch it up while they are sorting it out. Wow would that be a hell breaking loose if somone did.
Though the instant replacement of a person handling trademarks makes it look like this could be someone trying to sabotage the thing.

I dont see how this would affect developement at all though, as the legal team is not developing the game anyway and it would be affected in any way only if they were forced to change the name, which is not going to happen.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

Call it underhanded, but I could see someone grabbing the Watch Dogs trademark and holding it hostage unless Ubisoft was to change some of their opinions, or even force reorganization of their company. No doubt in my mind that there are a few enemies they've made who would want to do such a thing...

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Update: Ubisoft has filed all the necessary paperwork and regained its patent.

Trademark, not patent.

If this was a PR stunt, it was a really bad idea, mainly because filing fraudulent paperwork with a US government agency is a criminal offense.

 

[dumbseizure]

Well that was a weird series of events.

 

[Therumancer]

Yeah, add me to the "suspicious of publicity stunt" list here. God knows we've seen dumber ideas out of the games industry over the years.

I had the same thought, it seems more like something that works as publicity for a game about hacking, than something anyone would benefit from. It lacks any kind of substance to be a serious "trolling" attempt and if that was the case most of the groups that make such public displays want people to know that they did it.

Speaking for myself I'm not a big fan of bureaucracy, but if I was in the US Patent Office I wouldn't have just given them the rights back, I would have done an investigation and made Ubisoft prove that the signature was forged in order to make them sweat simply to discourage people from doing garbage like this and wasting time for the sake of easy marketing. Inevitably they would still get it back of course.

Actually before I even thought of it being a publicity stunt it occurred to me that if you could forge this guy's signature well enough and produce genuine-seeming enough documents to influence the patent office, you'd do far better to say have Yves Guilliemot who apparently has his fingers on a lot of Ubisoft's purse strings, sign over a substantial development budget to your now-non-existent "Ubisoft Caiman Islands" branch to develop a game about high stakes white collar thievery. Then by the chance it was noticed "hey we don't have a studio in the Caimans!" it doesn't matter because you know... you've got a ton of money in your Caiman Islands account where it was doubtlessly transferred away.

 

[lacktheknack]

And in the end, it turned out to be a hell of a publicity stunt, even if it wasn't one they intended to pull.

I'm very impressed. Couldn't have happened to a more appropriate game.

 

[JarinArenos]

Yeah, add me to the "suspicious of publicity stunt" list here. God knows we've seen dumber ideas out of the games industry over the years.

I had the same thought, it seems more like something that works as publicity for a game about hacking, than something anyone would benefit from. It lacks any kind of substance to be a serious "trolling" attempt and if that was the case most of the groups that make such public displays want people to know that they did it.

I've had a couple people point out now just how very stupid this would be, in response to my comment. Apparently they'd be risking large fines, jail time, potential disbarrment if the lawyer was in on it... and losing the trademark ANYWAY. So yeah... guess it's probably just someone being a dick.

 

[robert022614]

Back in my day we would have to troll companies with actual paperwork. None of that new fangled interwebs.

Also walked to school both ways uphill in a blizzard etc.

 

[Johnson McGee]

So the trademark office accepts a sketchy document abandoning a trademark on a well publicized project then turns around and places the burden of proof on the complainant to prove that the filing was fraudulent. Typical.

 

[chimeracreator]

So the trademark office accepts a sketchy document abandoning a trademark on a well publicized project then turns around and places the burden of proof on the complainant to prove that the filing was fraudulent. Typical.

They didn't receive a sketchy document. They received a properly filled out official form that appeared to be signed by all of the right people. When Ubisoft first contested this their legal team failed to supply the correct documentation to prove this point and as such this was rejected with this reason provided. They then resubmitted the correct forms at which point the abandonment was officially withdrawn. This entire process has taken under three days and that's including the time it took Ubisoft to change their legal team around.

 

[Therumancer]

Yeah, add me to the "suspicious of publicity stunt" list here. God knows we've seen dumber ideas out of the games industry over the years.

I had the same thought, it seems more like something that works as publicity for a game about hacking, than something anyone would benefit from. It lacks any kind of substance to be a serious "trolling" attempt and if that was the case most of the groups that make such public displays want people to know that they did it.

I've had a couple people point out now just how very stupid this would be, in response to my comment. Apparently they'd be risking large fines, jail time, potential disbarrment if the lawyer was in on it... and losing the trademark ANYWAY. So yeah... guess it's probably just someone being a dick.

Well, the thing is that there are going to be serious penalties to anyone involving in forging a signature under these circumstances, assuming whomever did it got caught. This is what brings the motive into question. Someone "just being a jerk" might cost Ubisoft some money and inconvenience, while facing years in jail and potentially huge fines if caught due to the amount of damages they could inflict through this act. On the other hand Ubisoft doing it themselves at least has the publicity, as the attention this garners is probably the equivalent of a very expensive advertising campaign, attention being very important at this stage of the game given how "Watch Dogs" has been pushed up continually and missed it's intended release alongside the new console generation.

So while the people tell you that this would be stupid and could carry some serious penalties are correct, at the end of the day someone still apparently did it, so in looking at the likely culprit you have to weigh possible motives. From the perspective of the guys at the top of Ubisoft, if caught they could do like any other major corporation, produce some sacrificial lamb and throw it under the bus. Let's say hypothetically Yves Guillimot masterminded this himself along with some other big wigs who all agree this is a genius advertising move, and it backfires and Ubisoft becomes officially suspected of causing the problem, all Yves will do is say "we conducted an investigation and have concluded my signature was forged by middle manager Smithers, who we are very disappointed with and will now be firing" followed by them, as the presumed victims, choosing not to pursue the criminal charges too vigorously. Middle Manager Smithers then is in the position of either prattling off some huge conspiracy theory, or more likely will simply "take it for the team" in exchange for a sweet envelope of cash waiting for him when he gets out for taking the fall (which Ubisoft will gladly pay, simply because if people get paid well it makes them willing to fall on the swords for a good payday when the CEOS ask... an old corporate technique).

Now I'm not saying it was definatly Ubisoft, just that unless more information is forthcoming it's where my guess lies because as valid as the point about serious penalties is, I simply can't see what anyone else would have to gain by taking this gamble. I mean it's pretty dumb for Ubisoft to have done it, I won't deny that, but really, it's even stupider to assign it to some random jerk since the person would have had to be sneaky enough and connected enough to pull this off, yet somehow amazingly stupid enough not to understand the risks compared to the minimal gain even from a lulz perspective. The groups that are powerful enough to troll like this without being particularly afraid of the ramifications, tend to want everyone to know they did it. If this was some kind of Anonymous Op, or a return of Lulzsec, or some new group, they would find a way of letting everyone know almost immediately because that's pretty much the point of the general mayhem... the notoriety.

 

[chimeracreator]

From the perspective of the guys at the top of Ubisoft, if caught they could do like any other major corporation, produce some sacrificial lamb and throw it under the bus. Let's say hypothetically Yves Guillimot masterminded this himself along with some other big wigs who all agree this is a genius advertising move, and it backfires and Ubisoft becomes officially suspected of causing the problem, all Yves will do is say "we conducted an investigation and have concluded my signature was forged by middle manager Smithers, who we are very disappointed with and will now be firing" followed by them, as the presumed victims, choosing not to pursue the criminal charges too vigorously. Middle Manager Smithers then is in the position of either prattling off some huge conspiracy theory, or more likely will simply "take it for the team" in exchange for a sweet envelope of cash waiting for him when he gets out for taking the fall (which Ubisoft will gladly pay, simply because if people get paid well it makes them willing to fall on the swords for a good payday when the CEOS ask... an old corporate technique).

I don't think you quiet understand how these investigations work and I also think you overestimate the amount of political clout that Ubisoft has. Since this is a criminal matter it is highly unlikely Ubisoft would be allowed to perform their own investigation and hand over the person they thought was guilty. More likely than not (assuming jurisdiction wasn't an issue, which it would be as they are a French company) it would go more along the line of,

"Hey, we think something might be up and the French government agreed to give us your mail server. So yeah, we're going to be copying all of the content from all of your email over the relevant time frame. If you have a backup we can just copy that, but if not then congrats your email system is offline until we're done cloning what we need. We're also going to be seizing Yves Guillemot's work and home computers along with any phones or tablets he has along with any other people that might be associated with this case, and who the French government agreed to give us a warrant for."

 

[Legion]

"The development won't be affected" -Ubisoft

"I hope the development isn't affected!" -Readers

The part mentioning the development not being affected was in an update. The people who posted about it being delayed most likely posted it before that update.

 

[Johnson McGee]

So the trademark office accepts a sketchy document abandoning a trademark on a well publicized project then turns around and places the burden of proof on the complainant to prove that the filing was fraudulent. Typical.

They didn't receive a sketchy document. They received a properly filled out official form that appeared to be signed by all of the right people. When Ubisoft first contested this their legal team failed to supply the correct documentation to prove this point and as such this was rejected with this reason provided. They then resubmitted the correct forms at which point the abandonment was officially withdrawn. This entire process has taken under three days and that's including the time it took Ubisoft to change their legal team around.

Excuse me, I'm trying to be dismissive and critical of a government agency and you're ruining it with your details and truths.

 

[Therumancer]

From the perspective of the guys at the top of Ubisoft, if caught they could do like any other major corporation, produce some sacrificial lamb and throw it under the bus. Let's say hypothetically Yves Guillimot masterminded this himself along with some other big wigs who all agree this is a genius advertising move, and it backfires and Ubisoft becomes officially suspected of causing the problem, all Yves will do is say "we conducted an investigation and have concluded my signature was forged by middle manager Smithers, who we are very disappointed with and will now be firing" followed by them, as the presumed victims, choosing not to pursue the criminal charges too vigorously. Middle Manager Smithers then is in the position of either prattling off some huge conspiracy theory, or more likely will simply "take it for the team" in exchange for a sweet envelope of cash waiting for him when he gets out for taking the fall (which Ubisoft will gladly pay, simply because if people get paid well it makes them willing to fall on the swords for a good payday when the CEOS ask... an old corporate technique).

I don't think you quiet understand how these investigations work and I also think you overestimate the amount of political clout that Ubisoft has. Since this is a criminal matter it is highly unlikely Ubisoft would be allowed to perform their own investigation and hand over the person they thought was guilty. More likely than not (assuming jurisdiction wasn't an issue, which it would be as they are a French company) it would go more along the line of,

"Hey, we think something might be up and the French government agreed to give us your mail server. So yeah, we're going to be copying all of the content from all of your email over the relevant time frame. If you have a backup we can just copy that, but if not then congrats your email system is offline until we're done cloning what we need. We're also going to be seizing Yves Guillemot's work and home computers along with any phones or tablets he has along with any other people that might be associated with this case, and who the French government agreed to give us a warrant for."

Ideally that is how it would work, on the other hand how often does this actually happen with white collar criminals? Not very often. When there is enough money involved you don't need huge amounts of direct political clout, all a big company has to do is provide a sacrificial lamb to take the blame publically. It's an expectation that those who run companies worth tens of millions of dollars have engrained into them.

That said, it's very true that it's pretty stupid, but at the same time when you look at Method, Motive, and Opportunity who else except for Ubisoft has all of those three things, as skewed as the risk/reward equasion is. Given the lack of anyone taking credit for this as part of a power trip (and the motivation of infamy within certain circles) it's hard to come up with any way that anyone except for Ubisoft could potentially gain anything at all from this. One would think the press wouldn't be worth the potential investigations and penalties, since even a sacrificial lamb usually needs to be paid off, and really I can't see the value of this press being that high, but still at the end of the day this happened, and the person who did it had to have a reason. Unless more information comes up so it makes sense, I'm going to suspect Ubisoft simply due to a process of elimination, since there is really nobody else with anything approaching a motive for this.

 

[chimeracreator]

That said, it's very true that it's pretty stupid, but at the same time when you look at Method, Motive, and Opportunity who else except for Ubisoft has all of those three things, as skewed as the risk/reward equasion is. Given the lack of anyone taking credit for this as part of a power trip (and the motivation of infamy within certain circles) it's hard to come up with any way that anyone except for Ubisoft could potentially gain anything at all from this. One would think the press wouldn't be worth the potential investigations and penalties, since even a sacrificial lamb usually needs to be paid off, and really I can't see the value of this press being that high, but still at the end of the day this happened, and the person who did it had to have a reason. Unless more information comes up so it makes sense, I'm going to suspect Ubisoft simply due to a process of elimination, since there is really nobody else with anything approaching a motive for this.

That's where I think you have it backwards. If you look at odds of getting caught a random Joe Shmoe who wants some laughs and just mails this from a random post box with Ubisoft's return address is virtually impossible to catch. You can't trace it back through the post system effectively to an individual so you're pretty much SOL. If it was an electronic submission that might be a bit trickier, but throw in an anonymous out of country proxy service that doesn't keep records and you're golden.

The only risk comes from talking about it, which is how most of these people get caught. Once you narrow down the list of suspects to a few machines that can be seized digital forensics can do some amazing things, but before then? Good luck, which is why a move like this would be a terrible publicity stunt because they would be the most at risk of being discovered if a real investigation occurs since if nothing else, the feds would want access to their system (voluntarily provided) to see if they were hacked.

 

[Living_Brain]

"The development won't be affected" -Ubisoft

"I hope the development isn't affected!" -Readers

The part mentioning the development not being affected was in an update. The people who posted about it being delayed most likely posted it before that update.

They were from after the update. The post right before mine is one of them, and that was less than an hour before me.

 

[thewatergamer]

Huh this game just keeps running into more walls doesn't it?

Shame cause it looks alright, not that I'm interested in it since its made by Ubisoft and an announcement around it suggested it will become a massive yearly sequel exploitation, so that killed the little enthusiasm I had,

Oh well hopefully it all gets sorted out and the game turns out to be amazing, because I could sure use a good game right now and WatchDogs has potential