Cartoon stick figure using a Wiimote to point at a chalkboard with “Nintendo” written in large chalk letters — representing a blog post about the Nintendo word mark trademark registration.

Trademark: Nintendo

First Used: 1979

Registered: 1982

Current Owner: NINTENDO OF AMERICA INC. [1]

Trademark Type: traditional trademark; word mark; design mark

Primarily Associated With: coin operated electronic and video games [2]

Generic Phrase: video game console or software, such as NINTENDO® Brand video game console or NINTENDO® Brand video game software

Also A Trademark For: watches and clocks [3]; operation manuals, clothing, and video game equipment and accessories [4]; public exhibitions, trade shows, and competitions for video games [5]; online retail store services [6]; candy [7]; and toy figurines and collectables [8], among many other goods and services

Brief (and likely incomplete) History [9]:

Congratulations to Nintendo for the successful launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 this month! Time will tell whether the console is one of their hits (like the Nintendo Switch) or one of their failures (like the Wii U). Let’s take a look at the famous Nintendo brand and its home consoles and handheld consoles!

Nintendo was founded in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan, as a Japanese playing card manufacturing company (around the same time the Bicycle Playing Card was released in the US). Known as hanafuda, the playing cards were often used by the Yakuza in illegal gambling halls. This illicit use of their playing cards was reflected in the company name: “Nin-ten-do" is written with characters that roughly translate to "luck-heaven-hall," or the place where you put your fortune in the hands of the gods. For the next 70 years, Nintendo became Japan’s preeminent manufacture of playing cards and introduced several innovations into the playing card marketplace.

Starting in the 1950s, the company made a bold pivot and expanded into making toys and amusement arcades. Nintendo formed a partnership with hardware maker Sharp, leading to the creation of innovative electronic toys like the Beam Gun, which used solar cells to simulate firing at exploding targets.

In 1981, Nintendo released Donkey Kong, a groundbreaking arcade game created by artist Shigeru Miyamoto, featuring a heroic carpenter named Jumpman who was trying to rescue his girlfriend Pauline from a barrel-throwing ape. Jumpman, later renamed Mario after Nintendo of America’s landlord Mario Segali, quickly rose to fame and became the company’s mascot. In 1984, Nintendo launched the Famicom system in Japan—later known globally as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)—which introduced a wave of hit titles, including Excitebike, Metroid, Punch-Out!, The Legend of Zelda, and the hugely successful Super Mario Bros.

At one point in time, there was concern that the Nintendo trademark could be lost to trademark genericide – Nintendo was hugely popular and people started calling any and every video game and console a “nintendo.” Through education, enforcement, and competition by others like Sega, Sony, and (much later) Microsoft, the Nintendo trademark survived and is stronger than ever today.