X-COM - Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual Property Rights

The trademark for the X-COM name was filed on May 25, 1995, by MicroProse Software. According to Julian Gollop, "They wanted us to do a deal where we would sign over any rights that we might have in return for some cash plus a high royalty on X-COM: Apocalypse. They more or less insisted on it, otherwise they were threatening to cancel the Apocalypse project, so there was a lot of bluff involved." Following the acquisition and subsequent merger of MicroProse with Hasbro, the X-COM intellectual property ("IP") was also transferred to Hasbro Interactive on August 19, 1998.

Due to financial difficulties, Hasbro Interactive was sold to Infogrames Entertainment, SA on January 29, 2001. As part of this transfer, the X-COM IP was legally transferred to Infogrames on December 21, 2001 (shortly thereafter, Infogrames was renamed Atari, SA). In 2005, Atari, SA transferred several IPs to Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. and X-COM was transferred with them on June 12, 2005.

The X-COM IP is currently owned by Take-Two and its subsidiaries; in 2007 there were unconfirmed rumors that Irrational Games (who are owned by Take-Two) were developing a new X-COM title. In May 2007, 2K Games (a subsidiary of Take-Two) inherited the X-COM franchise and re-released Terror from the Deep on Steam. In September 2008, UFO: Enemy Unknown, Apocalypse, Interceptor and Enforcer were also re-released as downloadable titles. 2K Games subsidiaries 2K Marin and Firaxis Games are currently developing two different XCOM games.