Sony's PlayStation 5 and it’s fate in India has been the talk of the town for a long time now. And it seems like Sony is in a fix concerning the trademark of the PS5 name in India. According to reports the PS5 trademark is currently in an ‘Opposed’ state.
This puts a spanner in the plans for Sony India, and it could be a possible reason for the delay in announcing the India launch date. The company has been reluctant to share any news on the topic whatsoever.
Sony PS5: Trademark issue
According to reports by The Mako Reactor, the trademark for PS5 in India was apparently filed by one Hitesh Aswani of Delhi back on October 29 of 2019. This is stated in this publicly available document. Whereas Sony has filled out the application for the same on February 6, 2020. This was brought to the attention of the publication by net neutrality and content regulation journalist Aroon Deep.
At the moment both Ashwani and Sony’s trademarks are in the ‘Opposed’ state. This means that either a third party believes that the trademark is present in the Trade Marks Journal or it is non-distinctive. The Mako Reactor reached out to Sony India who replied back saying, “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, however, we have no comments at this stage.”
Though Sony should not have a huge problem circumventing this problem, provided it can prove good will and that the product was in existence much before the filing. The other person claiming the trademark seems to have done that for an unrelated reason.
Though this might delay the launch of PS5 in India which was already looking dicey. Sony is reluctant to share a concrete date for the launch in the country yet and has claimed that the November 19 date was shared ‘erroneously’.
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