What on earth is Nintendo going for with this one? UPDATE: A new trademark and new info!
Those wacky folks over at Tendo Box decided to search the US Patent & Trademark Office for things Nintendo has recently trademarked. It seems as if they have hit pay dirt. In searching for new trademarks they came up with the word "Pikalele." Most likely, this points to some kind of Pikachu ukulele.
Word Mark: PIKALELE
Goods and Services: IC 015. US 002 021 036. G & S: Banjos; carrying cases for musical instruments; guitars; music boxes; musical instrument stands; musical instruments; stringed instruments; ukuleles
Mark Drawing Code: (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number: 76314167
Filing Date: September 17, 2001
Filed ITU: FILED AS ITU
Owner: (APPLICANT) Nintendo of America Inc. CORPORATION WASHINGTON 4820-150th Avenue NE Redmond WASHINGTON 98052
Attorney of Record: Jerald E. Nagae
Type of Mark:TRADEMARK
Register: PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator: LIVE
It's been known that Miyamoto-san was quite a fan of Sonic Team's rhythm based Samba de Amigo game for the Dreamcast and arcade. In the game one had to shake maracas with the beat in order to play. The question now comes up, could Nintendo be working on their own rhythm based game for the GameCube? Or maybe they'll hand the project over to Sonic Team, however unlikely that seems. The idea of a Pokemon rhythm game is also supported by some previously seen GameCube footage. Meowth's Party was thought to be just a tech demo of Meowth playing a song, but maybe it was a hint at things to come.
UPDATE: The Pikalele plot grows more interesting. Website AdvanceGB.com discovered that this trademark had two different records and the second one, serial number 76314162, has a different description. The second document makes it look like Nintendo has big musical plans indeed with “Pikalele.” This could very well be the name of Meowth’s Party and possibly a whole franchise of Pokemon music-related goods... We’ll have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, here’s the second trademark document:
Word Mark PIKALELE
Goods and Services IC 028. US 022 023 038 050. G & S: Dolls; music box toys; musical toys; plush, stuffed and cloth toys; toy banjos; toy guitars; toy musical instruments; toy string instruments; toy ukuleles
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 76314162
Filing Date September 17, 2001
Filed ITU FILED AS ITU
Owner (APPLICANT) Nintendo of America Inc. CORPORATION WASHINGTON 4820-150th Avenue NE Redmond WASHINGTON 98052
Attorney of Record Jerald E. Nagae
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
We’ll try to dig up more info on this, so stay tuned…