Xbox Trademark Dispute

Microsoft may have some trouble trademarking the Xbox name. Just days after Microsoft officially removed the "codename" qualification from the name Xbox with a great deal of flourish at a flashy press conference, MCV U.K. has reported that two of Microsoft's four trademark filings to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have been refused. The reason appears to be a technology holding company called Xbox Technologies of Coconut Grove, Fla., which uses the Nasdaq ticker symbol XBOX.OB. (Interestingly, their stock hit its 52-week high in mid-March, right around the time Microsoft's console was announced at the Game Developers Conference.) According to MCV U.K., Microsoft has opposed Xbox Technologies' filings. Microsoft and Xbox Technologies must resolve the conflict by November 8, or else they will have to settle the dispute before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. In other console nomenclature news, Nintendo has filed to register NGC as a legal trademark for its next-generation Gamecube console. This follows a long lineage of acronymic names for its consoles, from the NES to the SNES to the N64. Nintendo intends for this to be the official abbreviation for the Gamecube.