Heads up, everyone! Ubisoft has just announced today that they have acquired all intellectual property rights to the Tom Clancy name.

The deal is said to be set  "on a perpetual basis and free of all related future royalty payments, for use in video games and ancillary products including related books, movies and merchandising products."

I don't know about you guys, but this sure sounds like Ubisoft struck gold with this deal. It was not disclosed how much the video game publisher giant shelled out for this, but it is expected that they will  be earning a net cash position as much as € 130M (about US$ 200M) by the end of the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft's main man, has this to say about the acquisition:

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.... Capitalizing on the strong franchise 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.

In line with this acquisition, it is now also being said that Ubisoft will be pursuing a Tom Clancy MMO. While there is still nothing confirmed on this alleged new pursuit as Ubisoft is apparently still examining the MMO market, what Guillemot did say is that they really have decided to now go for an MMO title with the Tom Clancy name.

Not having to pay royalties definitely was a huge burden lifted off their shoulder, so there really should be nothing to keep them from expanding their ventures to the walls of the MMO industry.

Let's see how this pans out for Ubisoft. But for now, it does look like it's all going be rainbows and pots of gold for them with their perpetual acquisition.