The hopes and dreams of Skate fans longing for a fourth entry in the series have now been dashed, as EA has chosen to abandon the Skate trademark.
A listing by the United States Patent And Trademark Office (USPTO) shows that the trademark was re-upped on February 16, 2018, back before rumors started swirling around E3 2018 of a potential Skate 4 reveal. Obviously those rumors were quashed when nothing was announced at the show, and now, as of August 1, 2019, EA has abandoned the Skate trademark–seemingly putting to bed anymore Skate 4 speculation.
A trademark is considered abandoned when an applicant doesn’t respond to correspondence from the USPTO. GamesRadar notes that legal resource site Justia shows the Skate trademark’s application history and the various attempts made by the USPTO to contact EA. Justia does also list another Skate trademark that will remain active for the next decade, so it’s possible EA simply had no reason to keep both patents active at the same time. Why it didn’t relay this information to the USPTO is unclear, however.
Unless EA is going to rebrand it Sk4te, it appears as though a sequel to 2010’s Skate 3 is off the table, at least for now. Fortunately, Session exists and is currently available on Steam Early Access before eventually coming to Xbox One at some point in the future. It’s not quite Skate 4, adopting a more hardcore simulation-style approach to digital skateboarding, but it is shaping up quite nicely.
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