Sony Attempts and Fails to Trademark “Let’s Play”

The outgoing action points to “likelihood of confusion” with a previously registered trademark, “LP Let’s Play”, giving Sony six months to argue the case.

The phrase has existed even before YouTube-days, and is credited to people on Internet culture and comedy forum Something Awful in the year 2007. Some of today’s most successful web video creators are Let’s Players, including Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg (pictured above), who has the most-subscribed channel on YouTube with over 41.5 million subscribers.

Most games studios embrace Let’s Play videos, as they essentially provide free advertising for their latest titles and are increasingly becoming a large part of games marketing strategies.

This past October, the company applied for a trademark on the phrase, which it defines as “electronic transmission and streaming of video games via global and local computer networks; streaming of audio, visual, and audiovisual material via global and local computer networks”.

Rather, they rejected it due to how similar it is to another filing, for “Let’z Play of America”.

KitGuru Says: The idea that Sony could trademark the term “Let’s Play” seems completely ridiculous. Trademark Act Section 2(d), 15 U.S.C. §1052(d); see TMEP §§1207.01 et seq. If it happens, it’s possible that Sony could prevent competitors like Nintendo and Microsoft from using the term’ Let’s Play’ with their game streaming or broadcasting services. If no reply is received, the trademark attempt is considered abandoned.

In simple terms, Sony is looking to use “Let’s Play” as its trademark in reference to streaming of video games.