The weekly survey of the Japanese trademark databases by the modern-day wizards of Quiter yields an interesting look at what might be a future campaign from Nintendo. On September 3, Nintendo secured a trademark for the term "Origin Of Our TV Games," as well as the logo shown to the left there.

"TV Game" is a Japanese colloquialism for console videogames (because you play them on your TV, you see), and while Nintendo obviously isn't the very root of the phenomenon, it can certainly lay claim to defining much of console gaming as we know it, especially in Japan. As a marketing slogan, then, this would do a good job of recalling Nintendo's successful past.

Forward-looking observers might draw a connection between this image and Nintendo's plans to debut a significant new product next year (as you'll recall from yesterday's news). It's also interesting to note that, on the same day, Nintendo re-trademarked the name and logo for "Family Computer," which you of course shorten to get "Famicom," the Japanese name for what came to America as the Nintendo Entertainment System.

It's obviously a bit early to draw any major conclusions from this image, though, other than to note that it might not be such a great idea to use it for marketing in any British commonwealth countries.

If anything more comes of this story, we'll be sure to follow up in the future.

Copyright © 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in 1UP.