Capcom gets a very special award from the Japanese government for having 6,000 worldwide trademarks

Capcom’s been doing rather well for itself, lately—what with Monster Hunter Wilds coming out, hot on the heels of a batch of popular remakes. Dragon’s Dogma 2 may have had its controversies, but I still had a ton of fun with it, so I’m willing to give them a gold star, too.

What I might not be giving them is an award for having 6,000 trademarks—but then again, I’m not the Japanese government. As translated by Automaton (via Gamebiz), Capcom has received the prestigious honour of ‘you’ve been a good little corporation, haven’t you’ award. Okay, that’s not actually what it’s called—it’s the “Commissioner of Japan Patent Office Award for Corporate Utilization of Intellectual Property”, but that’s what I heard in my brain.

Presented to Capcom by “Japan’s patent office and ministry of economy, trade and industry”, the award is given to companies that’ve “played a significant role in developing and actively using Japan’s intellectual property rights system”, Automaton explains.

Now, to be fair to ol’ Capcom—those 6,000 trademarks aren’t mechanical patents, such as the infuriating ones Nintendo is currently targeting Palworld with. The likelihood is that plenty of these are sensible filings to the things Capcom does have fair dibs over, like the videogames it makes—or trademarks over merchandise for certain characters. Here’s one for Chun-Li toy dolls, for example.

And I can at least see the idea behind the honour. Capcom’s a big Japanese company, Japan is going to be proud of that, so it’s given it an award for doing big company things. That list of 6,000 includes worldwide trademarks, too—for example, Nintendo has about 300 Australia-specific trademarks. You’re gonna ramp up that number quickly if you collect all your territories together.

But it’s also rare that a company’s full list of trademarks is announced in this volume. Now I’m curious as to whether Capcom actually holds the throne for most litigiously-prepared videogame company. I want leaderboards. I want a ranked ladder of good corporate engines.

Automaton also explains that “Capcom was praised for its ‘Single Content Multiple Usage’ strategy, which revolves around turning game-related trademarks into merchandise and services beyond just games. The company also set itself apart from peers by pioneering the use of AI for checking trademarks.”

Ah, the wonders of technology: Letting you spin a web of legalese faster than ever before. Just, uh, don’t use the AI for actually filing reports. That doesn’t usually go well.