Is there still hope for The Last Guardian?

Yesterday we found out that Sony failed to renew their legal rights to own the trademark for The Last Guardian in the US. This did make it sound like there wasn't much chance of the long-delayed title ever seeing the light of day, but there is still some hope according to a trademark lawyer, Jesse Saivar, who has been asked by Venturebeat to explain the process.

"Based solely on the history of this application, this indicates that at some point in 2012, Sony planned to create a game titled The Last Guardian", said Saivar. "They filed what's called an 'intent-to-use' application which means they weren't using that title yet, but planned to at some point in the future."

Saivar then explains that although Sony has not renewed this application (which they had done three times previously), this miss isn't a final death sentence for their rights to own the trademark.

Sony still has two months to tell the United States Patent and Trademark Office that it missed the deadline and ask for another extension - though the company will have to pay an additional fee for not filing within the appropriate amount of time.

So, there is hope. Perhaps not much, but hope nonetheless.