Ubisoft acquires all ip rights to the Tom Clancy name

Means the publisher is now free of related royalty payments for use in video games, books, movies and merchandise.

Ubisoft has announced an agreement with Tom Clancy to acquire all intellectual property rights to the Tom Clancy name for use in video games and other products including books, movies and merchandising products. The acquisition is estimated to save the publisher a minimum of five million Euros a year.

"After ten years of a highly successful collaboration which has seen the creation of blockbusters that set standards in the videogame industry, such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, today, acquiring the perpetual property rights of the Tom Clancy name for video games and related projects is a major event," stated Yves Guillemot, Chief Executive Officer at Ubisoft. "Capitalizing on the strong franchises that we've built over the past 10 years, we will take the Tom Clancy game brand to the next level of the global entertainment industry."

The most recent of Ubisoft's Tom Clancy titles, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, was released last week and scored an impressive 8 out of 10. Other titles in development include Splinter Cell Conviction, EndWar and Air Combat.