We all know that slow news days normally spawn all sorts of rumors. Square Enix recently filed for the trademark "Square", which prompted some to speculate that the Japanese publisher was going to drop the "Enix" part of their logo to rebrand into a more nostalgia-friendly "Square".

Today Robert Peeler, Community Manager of Final Fantasy XIV confirmed in the game's official forums that the rebranding rumor is indeed just a rumor, and the "Enix" part of the brand is going to stay:

While there have been articles speculating about our trademark registrations of single words and groups of words included in our brands, and SQUARE ENIX specifically, we have no plans to change our company name or branding."

That was rather expected, as defensive trademarking is a common practice in the business world. Companies normally strive to trademark and defend every part of their brand and IP names that they can (the conflict between Minecraft's Notch and Bethesda is no exception), in order to protect the integrity of their brand names for speculation.

If Square Enix didn't trademark "Square", any upstart developer could have named his softco like that, creating confusion between customers and eventually threatening the Square Enix brand itself.

What made the rumor even less likely to be true is the fact that rebranding operations of large and established companies are normally very extensive and complex affairs, and even more than that, extremely costly. Square Enix hasn't been floating in gold lately, so it's not surprising that wasting their finances like that isn't on the menu.