BrockStar vs Rockstar (Take-Two Interactive): Round Two. The tables have turned.
Last November, Take-Two Interactive pleaded thirty trademarks against our company and then walked away. Today we filed a Petition for Cancellation against the registration at the top of their list, the gold R-and-star ROCKSTAR GAMES badge, for abandonment and fraud. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board instituted the case the same day. Every document is below.
The proceeding
- Proceeding
- Cancellation No. 92093293
- Filed and instituted
- November 4, 2026
- Petitioner
- BrockStar Media Corp.
- Respondent
- Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
- Registration challenged
- U.S. Reg. No. 2,855,543 (R ROCKSTAR GAMES, Class 9)
- Grounds
- Abandonment and fraud, Trademark Act § 14(3)
- Take-Two's answer due
- January 3, 2027
The documents
Republished from the Board's public docket. The exhibit book reproduces the specimens Take-Two itself filed with the USPTO between 2002 and 2026, with their document numbers.
What the petition says
The petition asks the Board to cancel one registration: No. 2,855,543, the composite mark of the R-and-star device in a gold square with a black band reading ROCKSTAR GAMES, registered June 22, 2004 for computer game software and video game programs and renewed August 20, 2024. It pleads two counts.
- Count I, abandonment. That the registered badge has not been used on the goods for far longer than the three consecutive years that make abandonment presumptive; that the only product ever evidenced for it was manufactured no later than 2010; and that Take-Two now uses the device and the words as separate marks, which it has separately registered.
- Count II, fraud in maintaining and renewing the registration. That the June 4, 2024 declaration of continued use was false; that it was executed by Take-Two's outside trademark counsel on the strength of a photograph of a sealed, discontinued 2010 package, the same package photographed for the 2010 and 2014 filings; and that it was made knowingly or with reckless disregard for its truth. The petition pleads that Take-Two and its counsel were on written notice from January 20, 2025 that the maintenance record was under challenge, and that five further declarations on related registrations followed.
What it all means
- A petition to cancel is the mirror image of an opposition. In 2024 Take-Two asked the Board to stop our registration. In 2026 we are asking the same Board to strike one of theirs.
- The target is one registration, not the Rockstar logo in general. Reg. 2,855,543 is a specific picture: the gold square, the black band, the words ROCKSTAR GAMES inside it. Take-Two owns other registrations for the R-and-star device alone and for the words alone. Those are not in this case.
- Abandonment has a legal definition. Three consecutive years of non-use is presumptive abandonment under 15 U.S.C. § 1127. The petition says the last product that carried this badge was made in 2010.
- Fraud here means a false sworn statement to the Patent Office. Every ten years a registrant must swear the mark is still in use and show a specimen. The petition says the 2024 sworn statement was false and that its specimen, a photograph of a sealed 2010 box, is the proof.
- The Board has already served Take-Two. The institution order is the Board's service. Take-Two must answer by January 3, 2027 or face default.
- What happens next. Take-Two's likely first move is a motion to dismiss. After that: a discovery conference, document and deposition discovery, trial by written record, briefs, and a decision by a panel of administrative trademark judges, probably in 2028.
- What it costs. $600 to file. There is no courtroom; Board proceedings are conducted on paper.
- What we are asking for. Cancellation of the registration. Nothing else is requested in the petition.
- Why a marketing company cares about a video-game registration. BrockStar is expanding into software and games under BROCKSTAR-formative names. An unused registration for identical goods, one letter away, is a citation an examiner can raise and that Take-Two has already pleaded once.
- Nothing in the petition is secret. It is built from Take-Two's own filings in the USPTO's public database. Anyone can check every page against TSDR.
The schedule the Board set
- January 3, 2027: Take-Two's answer due.
- February 2, 2027: discovery conference deadline; discovery opens.
- March 4, 2027: initial disclosures.
- August 1, 2027: discovery closes.
- September 2027 to February 2028: trial periods and rebuttal, by written record.
- April to May 2028: briefs, then a decision by a panel of administrative trademark judges.
Dates come from the Notice of Institution. The Board resets them when motions are pending, which is routine.
Round one, in one paragraph
On November 27, 2024, Take-Two opposed our application to register BROCKSTAR MEDIA for marketing services, pleading thirty registrations and applications, Reg. No. 2,855,543 among them. I answered it myself, declined a seven-term coexistence proposal, and told their counsel in writing that I would challenge their registrations one at a time. Take-Two withdrew. The Board dismissed the opposition with prejudice on June 27, 2025, and BROCKSTAR MEDIA registered on July 22, 2025 as U.S. Reg. No. 7,870,392. The round-one story.
"Last year this company tried to take my name. They lost, with prejudice. This year I read their file. The registration they pleaded against me has not been on a product since 2010, and in 2024 they swore to the Patent Office that it was still in use. Now they answer for that, on the record, in the forum they chose."
Press and coverage
The press release, the full docket-verified background, Take-Two's three-year enforcement record and the book that tells round one are on our news site.
BrockStar Media Corp. is not affiliated with Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. or Rockstar Games; their names and marks are used only to identify them. Nothing on this page is legal or investment advice.