Statement from Stephen Kick, CEO of Night Dive:
"At this time we are unable to comment on future plans. I would like to add that our team has a great fondness for these games and our hope is that they will one day be re-released."
http://www.geimin.co.uk/night-dive-studios-files-no-one-lives-forever-trademark/
Hope? That doesn't sound like they've secured the rights. Maybe they're just squatting on the TMs to protect them from other parties grabbing them and preventing a future re-release or something.

Yes, it doesnt seem like they have the rights to the game at this point.

It could be either way. I still hope to see them this year.
I might try that if there is no official word soon. Only game I've done that with so far is Jazz Jackrabbit.

I imagine that ND is trying to find out who exactly owns the rights. With the copyright claim they are hoping that the current rights holder will send out a C&D so they can determine who actually owns the franchise. This is just a potential step for them in getting the NOLF games re-released.

I think you might be right about that. Various people have suggested (half-jokingly) that GOG should just release the games and then see who complains, but obviously that is a step too far; perhaps ND found a decent step forward.

Right, that's what I meant to imply. Even though I might disagree with some aspects of GOG I certainly don't want you guys to get sued. ;)

At least I would be happy if GOG started to do that, cause I don't care if a game is avaible on GOG only or on Steam only or on both services as long as it is avaible.

For some bigger games it would be beneficial for GOG, seeing how sometimes all it takes to buy a franchise is to pay few thousand dollars for it (like Freespace)

On the other hand, GOG's ways are still mysterious and sometimes I am mad at them for their release schedule, sure.

For example, I don't get why they haven't released Gangsters 2 yet, even though they have the publisher signed and the game works flawlessly, at least on my machine. Of course there may be some compability problems for some machines and that's what stalls the release, but I don't think that's the case for all the games from the series they decided to not release (yet, or ever - like Desert Storm 2 and other games from Conflict series)

So yeah, I still have some beef with GOG sometimes.

I'd be happy if they did that and even more so, if it's not available on Steam then as long as they do the Linux support if Steam would offer it for the game in question. :P
On the other hand, I wouldn't touch Steam anyway.

Uh, no. The trademark has been up for grabs for a while now. Trademarks need to be actively renewed every so often or otherwise you lose them. In the case of NOLF no one bothered to renew them so they were free to be registered by anyone who wanted.

That's just what ND did and no one will send a C&D because a) if they cared, they would have renewed the trademark and b) there is no legal grounds for a C&D.

If that would be the case, GoG would surely be looking out for unrenewed trademarks like this one... at least I hope so.

Why? Unless they want to create NOLF 3 for example, the trademark is useless to them. A trademark is just the right to use the name for a new product from here on out. It doesn't contain the rights to old products which used the trademark name before.

GOG is neither a game studio nor a publisher, so what would they do with the trademark?

I've never played these before, but seeing them in the store I always thought the British chick on the cover was very sexy. I'll go ahead and add my vote for them.