With the Phoenix Wright Trilogy and the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles available on just about every platform, fans have been hoping the other games will follow suit.

Especially in light of the upcoming closure of the 3DS eShop, a port would be welcome news, since once the 3DS store is gone, Apollo Justice will only be available on the DS and mobile devices, and Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice will be on mobile alone.

(Investigations is already only available on DS or mobile. It didn’t even earn a 3DS port.)

I want to hear about Ace Attorney 7 as much as anyone, but I’ve been hoping for a collection of 4-6 in the meantime, so that all of the games leading up to 7 are more readily available.

Well, maybe there’s a chance. People watching for new game trademarks noticed that Capcom recently filed a trademark for Apollo Justice. You can read the details of the trademark here, although it’s mainly just a long list of concepts related to video games.

One puzzling thing is that it’s a Japanese trademark, but it’s for “Apollo Justice,” not Gyakuten Saiban 4. So… what do we take from that? Did they file a trademark specifically for the western release? Or for something related to the character, but using his English name?

(Update: I’ve seen a plausible suggestion, which is that it could be a port/remaster/collection with English included in the Japanese release, like they did for the Trilogy & Chronicles, so they’d need the English title trademarked in Japan.)

I took a look at Capcom’s other recent trademarks, which include the Capcom Fighting Collection, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, and some hunting trademarks that seem related to Monster Hunter, among others. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to when trademarks are filed compared to when the games were announced, though, but seeing an Apollo Justice trademark among all of these gives me hope!

Trademarking only Apollo Justice might suggest they’re going to port the games separately, but maybe not. Right now, this trademark is more puzzling than anything else.

Of course, trademarks don’t always mean anything. I’m still patiently waiting for Baten Kaitos news after those promising trademarks.

Ideally, I’d like this to lead to a collection of Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice, followed by an Investigations duology with Investigations 2 getting an official western release, and then of course Ace Attorney 7. …Okay, I would trade away most of these for a Great Ace Attorney Investigations. I need that to exist. Please.

In the meantime, Capcom has all of their 3DS games on sale, with Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice at $5 each, which is ridiculously good.

So what do you think is up with this mysterious Apollo Justice trademark? Is it for a port? A collection? Something entirely different? Random chance?? Let me know what you think!