The James Bond IP owner has opposed an attempt to trademark ’90s parody video game character James Pond

The owner of the James Bond 007 IP has opposed an attempt to register a trademark for video game parody character James Pond.

The original James Pond: Underwater Agent was released in 1990, and was followed by the far more popular James Pond II: Codename RoboCod.

Although it was followed by other titles – 1993’s James Pond 3: Operation Starfish and mini-game spin-off The Aquatic Games – the James Pond series essentially ended in the mid ’90s, with the only attempt to revive it being a poorly received iOS game in 2011.

This has changed in recent years, with the current James Pond rights co-holders Gameware Europe and System 3 each announcing new James Pond titles (neither of which the game’s original creator is particularly happy with).

As part of this new push to revive the James Pond franchise, System 3 filed to trademark ‘James Pond’ last year, under a number of categories including video games, toys and clothing.

Now, as reported by the World Trademark Review (via Time Extension), the trademark application has been opposed by Danjaq LLC, the holding company which owns the copyright and trademarks to the characters, elements and other material related to the James Bond films.

Danjaq hasn’t commented on why it has opposed the trademark application, but the World Trademark Review suggests it is “widely expected to rely on the reputation of the Bond mark and the legal consequences of that status”.

In a statement to the publication, System 3 founder and CEO Mark Cale argued that the James Pond character has been established for decades and shouldn’t be considered a new IP that’s only recently been set up.

“James Pond is a longstanding, well-established and widely recognised video game property dating back to the early 1990s, with its own distinct identity, history and audience in the games market,” he said. “Over the years, it has been commercially published and distributed through more than 12 partners. That history included major industry names such as Electronic Arts before System 3 acquired the IP rights.

“System 3 has a substantial catalogue of valuable classic retro game properties that it continues to preserve, restore and bring to modern audiences. As part of that process, formal trademark protection has become increasingly important in the modern marketplace environment, including for brand verification, protection and direct commercial activity on major online platforms.

“This is therefore not a new or invented brand, but a genuine historic games property with longstanding commercial presence and recognition of 35 years.”

Last year Gameware Europe announced a new gamed called James Pond: Rogue AI, which led to James Pond’s original creator James Sorrell criticising the company for promoting it with “lazy, AI-generated bullshit”.

“I hate almost everything they do with a passion, all the more so since they duped me into being part of their shambolic Kickstarter campaign all those years back, and I stupidly allowed my name to become associated with their bottom-feeding enterprise,” Sorrell told Time Extension last year.

System 3 also announced a retro compilation called James Pond Legacy: The Pond is Not Enough, which was also criticised for seemingly featuring AI-generated cover art, with Sorrell stating: “That there are two companies fighting over these tepid scraps just beggars belief.”

Sorrell said he no longer likes to associate himself because of what the character has become, saying: “The James Pond name has been so degraded by Gameware that I only want to distance myself from it.”