Bungie files trademark for 'The Taken King,' possibly for Destiny

Bungie applied for a trademark for "The Taken King" last week, according to a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filing discovered today by NeoGAF, and the name could be related to Destiny.

The application, which covers products including "downloadable video games," was filed April 28 by attorney Jim Charne. He is also listed on the trademark applications for Destiny's two existing expansions, The Dark Below and the upcoming House of Wolves. A logo for "The Taken King" is attached to the filing, too. The red — or "oxblood," as the filing refers to it — logo closely resembles the symbol for the Hive alien race in Destiny.

Here's the logo:

And here's the Hive symbol, straight from Destiny's Grimoire cards:

House of Wolves, the second half of the Expansion Pass that Destiny launched with, will be released May 19. Destiny publisher Activision announced in February that Bungie is working on a "major content release" for the game that the studio is planning to release this fall. Bungie's original contract with Activision from 2010 stipulated that the studio would put out a downloadable expansion, codenamed "Comet," in the years between major entries in the Destiny franchise.

We've reached out to Activision for comment, and will update this article with any information we receive. Bungie's next livestream for House of Wolves, scheduled to start today at 2 p.m. ET, will go into detail on the expansion's new endgame mode, the Prison of Elders. You can see a teaser for the mode below.