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The state of the Fable franchise is a hotbed of rumors right now, and Microsoft has added fuel to the fire with renewal of the franchise trademark.

The illustrious Fable RPG franchise has been in and of conversations over the past few weeks with the sudden securing of various social media and other elements relating to it. Though Microsoft has been coy about the whole situation, they also recently brought more raised eyebrows to the matter with a recent renewal of the Fable franchise trademark under “intent to use” filings.

The new renewal of the Fable franchise trademark was submitted on June 26, 2020 and accepted for review by the US Patent and Trademark Office on July 2, 2020. It’s worth noting that the renewal was filed under Intent to Use classifications. While that might seem more promising, what it really means is that when a trademark isn’t being used commercially, the filing party must argue a case that it will be using the trademarked product within six months of acceptance. After six months, the filing party can file an extension, but only with good cause to believe that it will then be using the trademark in some way, shape, or form.

https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status...-intent-to-use

It’s worth noting, Fable 4 has been rumored to be in development since at least 2018, but there has been little in the way of confirmation from Microsoft or developer Playground Games, who was said to be working on it. It’s also worth noting that seemingly official Fable and Perfect Dark social media accounts popped up out of nowhere within the recent months and have been linked to Microsoft company emails. That said, Xbox Games Marketing General Manager Aaron Greenberg argued that these were simply common practice company placeholders. Despite that claim, the Fable account has only existed since March 2020.

Microsoft is playing it as close to the chest as can be seemingly. It remains to be seen what will happen in the storm of rumors surrounding Fable, but something more concrete is that Microsoft has made a number of interesting moves with the franchise in a short time period. At the very least, when the six months is upon this Intent to Use trademark, we may find out more. Stay tuned.

Microsoft Renews Fable Trademark With 'Intent To Use'