American games giant Activision Publishing has applied for a brand new trademark for something called 'Cartoon Karaoke'.

The application was filed with USPTO - the United States patent and trademark authority - on May 30th, 2019, following a priority filing in Tonga on December 6th, 2018. A priority filing is what companies do when they want to be able to claim ownership of a trademark before filing in somewhere like the United States, Canada or Europe, where these applications are published publicly.

In priority regions like Tongo or Trinidad and Tobago, this generally isn't the case, and later - when the company wants to file the trademark in North America or Europe - they can cite the priority filing as an indication of their ownership.

These kinds of filings are - in general - for massive projects or IP that the company doesn't want to get out into the wild. Google, for example, filed all of its Stadia trademarks in Trinidad and Tobago ahead of its announcement at GDC 2019.

As for what Cartoon Karaoke is, we don't know. The filing states that this trademark applies to: 

"Computer game software; Computer game software for use on mobile and cellular phones; Downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices; Downloadable audio-visual files featuring television programs; Pre-recorded media, namely, discs, CDs and DVDs featuring television programs Entertainment services, namely, providing interactive multi-player computer games via the internet and electronic communication networks; Providing television programs, not downloadable, via video-on-demand transmission services; television entertainment."

All of which makes it sound very much like a broader entertainment brand, as well as a video games property. 

We've reached out to Activision for comment and are yet to hear back.