It has recently been reported that Elden Ring developer, FromSoftware, is the rightful owner of the Elden Ring trademark. Following Bandai Namco owning the rights to the title/franchise at launch and for its first full year, a document from the US Patent and Trademark Office (thanks, VGC) has revealed that the trademark was transferred to the Japanese developer back in March last year.
The document announcing the transfer of rights states, "Assignor [Bandai Namco] hereby assigns to assignee [From Software] all right, title and interest in and to the trademark, together with the goodwill of the business symbolised by the trademark and the identified registration therefor, and with all claims arising out of or relating to the use of ownership of the trademark."
The main catch here however seems to be that this transfer of rights only applies to the game's name, as there would be no need to apply for an IP transfer in full at a public registration, as this could instead be done internally and via a contract between the two companies.
Either way, it seems like FromSoftware is in charge of the Elden Ring name going forward, suggesting that it could have quite an exciting future beyond the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, whenever that is slated to actually make its debut.