North Carolina: Firm Asks USPTO to Cancel Rockstar’s Gold Logo Trademark, Says Renewals Reused One GTA Box
- A North Carolina company has asked the U.S.
- BrockStar Media Corp.
- The petition claims Take-Two abandoned this exact version of the logo and that its 2024 renewal was fraud on the USPTO.
A North Carolina company has asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Take-Two Interactive’s 2004 registration for the gold Rockstar Games logo. It says Take-Two kept the registration alive for 14 years by sending in images of the same sealed Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy box, printed with a 2002-2010 copyright date.
BrockStar Media Corp. of Rocky Mount filed the petition for cancellation on November 4, 2026, and the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board opened Cancellation No. 92093293 the same day. The target is Registration No. 2,855,543 for “R ROCKSTAR GAMES”: the gold square with a black “R,” a white star and the words ROCKSTAR GAMES in a black band along the bottom, registered in 2004 for “computer game software and video game programs.”
The petition claims Take-Two abandoned this exact version of the logo and that its 2024 renewal was fraud on the USPTO. These are one side’s allegations, filed by the company’s president with no outside lawyer listed, and the Board has not ruled on them. When Game Empress checked the TTABVUE docket on the evening of November 7, U.S. Eastern time, it showed no filing from Take-Two.
The box at the center of the case
A registration does not stay on the books by itself. Under Section 8 of the Trademark Act, the owner must swear the mark is still in use between the fifth and sixth years, then in the year before each 10-year anniversary. Each filing needs a specimen “showing current use of the mark in commerce.”
According to the petition, the specimen in each of Take-Two’s 2010, 2014 and 2024 filings was the shrink-wrapped Mac edition of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, with a “© 2002-2010” copyright line and UPC 710425318009. It says the 2024 declaration offered no webpage or store listing, only a “scanned image showing the mark used on product packaging.”
Game Empress checked this against the registration’s USPTO status and document record. On November 8 we also opened the 2014 and 2024 specimen files in the USPTO’s document viewer and compared them with the copies reproduced in the petition, each labeled with its USPTO document number.
| Filing | Filed | USPTO action | Specimen document | What the petition’s copy shows |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sections 8 and 15 declaration | Nov. 23, 2010 | Accepted Dec. 11, 2010 | SPE20101124124816 | Images of the front and back of the sealed Mac box; “© 2002-2010” and UPC 710425318009 legible |
| First renewal (Sections 8 and 9) | Dec. 16, 2014 | Accepted Jan. 9, 2015 | SPE20141219144453 | Photo of the back of the shrink-wrapped box, with glare on the plastic; same UPC |
| Second renewal (Sections 8 and 9) | June 4, 2024 | Accepted Aug. 20, 2024 | SPE20240604212622 | Lower-resolution image of the back; same UPC readable, copyright line too blurred to read |
| Cancellation petition | Nov. 4, 2026 | Instituted Nov. 4, 2026; answer due Jan. 3, 2027 | — | — |
The USPTO record lists one specimen document with each filing, and the numbers match those the petition cites. In the 2010 copy, the box front shows the R-and-star square without any words; the full badge with ROCKSTAR GAMES appears only as a small logo beside the barcode on the back, as the petition says.
Our comparison found one difference from the petition. It calls the 2024 specimen “another photograph” taken “from a different angle.” The USPTO’s own files point the other way. The 2014 specimen is a 1,836 by 2,376 pixel photo; the 2024 specimen is a 465 by 660 pixel image. Side by side, the 2024 image shows the box at the same angle, with the same reflections on the shrink wrap in the same places, so it appears to be the 2014 photo cropped and reduced in size. In the petition’s copies, the two images also line up after a simple resize, with no rotation or change of angle, and match at a pixel correlation of 0.99, where 1.0 means identical. Take-Two has not given its side.
Abandonment and fraud, as the petition tells it
Under federal trademark law, three straight years without use is “prima facie evidence of abandonment,” a starting presumption the owner can try to rebut. BrockStar argues that Rockstar’s current boxes, website, store and launcher show the R-and-star logo alone and the words “Rockstar Games” separately, but not the combined gold badge in this registration.
The fraud count alleges that the June 2024 statement that the mark “is in use in commerce” was false and made knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth. As evidence of intent, not as separate claims, the petition lists other Rockstar renewals. One is a ROCKSTAR PASS filing whose screenshot says the product “is no longer available on the Steam store.”
An earlier fight Take-Two started
The two companies have met at the Board before. On November 27, 2024, Take-Two opposed BrockStar’s application for BROCKSTAR MEDIA, a marketing-services mark, citing likelihood of confusion and dilution. The docket lists 29 pleaded registrations, including No. 2,855,543. BrockStar answered on January 20, 2025, without a lawyer.
On March 11, 2025, Take-Two withdrew and asked that the dismissal be “without prejudice.” The Board’s rules allow that after an answer only with the applicant’s written consent, so in a June 27, 2025 order it dismissed the opposition with prejudice. BROCKSTAR MEDIA is now registered as No. 7,870,392.
BrockStar now says it is developing a computer game, The Ghetto, to sell as BROCKSTAR GAMES, and that this registration could be cited against that name because the two differ by one letter. The petition, signed by company president Carl Brock, also says BrockStar sent Take-Two’s lawyers draft cancellation petitions in March 2025 and February 2026. BrockStar also publishes its side of the dispute on its own website, which promotes a book Brock wrote about the Take-Two opposition.
What this case can and cannot do
A cancellation is a case at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, a tribunal inside the USPTO, over whether a registration should stay on the federal register. Unlike Aristocrat’s trademark lawsuit against PAYDAY publisher Starbreeze, which is in federal court, it stays inside the USPTO. In its 2025 order, the Board told BrockStar that its jurisdiction “is limited to registrability determinations” and that it does not award attorneys’ fees or costs.
The petition asks to cancel one registration, No. 2,855,543. Take-Two’s separate registrations for the R-and-star logo alone and for the words ROCKSTAR GAMES are not targets, though BrockStar reserves the right to challenge them later. The petition does not mention Grand Theft Auto VI.
The Board’s institution notice gives Take-Two until January 3, 2027 to answer, a Sunday, which the Board’s weekend rule moves to the next business day. Missing it “may result in the entry of default judgment and cancellation of the registration,” the notice says. If the case is fought, the schedule runs to a final brief on May 27, 2028. Until the Board decides, the USPTO lists the registration as live, with a cancellation pending.
Featured image: The TTABVUE docket for Cancellation No. 92093293, BrockStar Media Corp. v. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Screenshot: Game Empress / USPTO TTABVUE