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DOTA2: Blizzard Suing Valve Over Trademark
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
According to a pair of legal filings, it appears that Blizzard is suing Valve to prevent it from trademarking the DOTA name. Blizzard claims that the DOTA name has been closely aligned with the Warcraft series for the past seven years. Defense of the Ancients was originally created as a mod for Warcraft III.
1. By this Opposition, Blizzard seeks to prevent registration by its competitor Valve Corporation ("Valve") of a trademark, DOTA, that for more than seven years has been used exclusively by Blizzard and its fan community, under license from Blizzard. By virtue of that use, the DOTA mark has become firmly associated in the mind of consumers with Blizzard, including to signify a highly popular scenario or variant of one of Blizzard's best-selling computer games, Warcraft III. Over the past seven years, the mark DOTA has been used exclusively in connection with Blizzard and its products, namely Warcraft III. Most notably, DOTA has been used as the popular name of a Warcraft III software "mod" file that has been distributed, marketed, and promoted by Blizzard and its fans (under license from Blizzard)
Read the legal documentation here.
Sources: Destructoid and @DevinConnors.
Comments
Sweet. Diablo 3 pushed back to Q2 2012 cuz we are suing the crap outta Valve!
They have a point!
look here Valve has been working on DOTA 2 for 2 years now or more and blizzard just now starts suing it has to do with Valve dota is better then there Blizzard dota game.
That seems a bit odd, while dota was a mod it wasn´t really made by Blizzard.
They could possibly sue because the game more or less look like WC3 though but if you can sue for that we would see plenty of MMOs in trouble.
Meh, I never got this American idea hat you should sue people for as many things as possible (like spilling hot coffee in your own lap and crap), I hope Blizzard loses this one.
DOTA was a wonderfully made mod and the right to the name and mod specific things should be to Eul and Guinsoo.
Pushed back? They have never given a official release date.
original dota was created by private person...he should join the fray and sue both for copyright infrigement
I guess it depends on the terms of service, sometimes it says things like that it allows the company to claim ownership or trademarks on the mods being made for their games and stuff like that.
Another thing is that they're claiming trademark, since the term DOTA was usually associated to warcraft. Trademarks are different than copyrights, if you don't defend a trademark then you're allowing it to be used by default, and if you fail to defend it you can lose it if they become common terms.
EDIT: the legal term is genericized trademark, here's a list of propietary names that lost their trademarks when they became common used words:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
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Well, they did say that they planned to release it somewhere in 2006 the first time I saw a date... That is a bit general though but they scrapped the game, fired the entire team (Blizzard North) and started from scratch.
If that isn´t "pushed back" I don´t know what is.
Are you suggesting that designers, animators, softeware engineers and all the other developers are also corporate lawyers?
Because it seems odd that a lawsuit over a trademark dispute would affect work on a title that has nothing to do with that trademark. SC2 DOTA might be delayed because of it, but D3?
Yes, but DotA has changed hands multiple times; most notably from Eul to Guinsoo to IceFrog. IceFrog has maintained the game since 2006 after Guinsoo left it in a mechanical shamble.
The game's popularity was driven and a direct outcome of IceFrog's work.
Ideally I could see the compromise being that Dota is made a free-access term, but I really think it should be up to IceFrog (Valve, by proxy) as to what to do with it.
Legally? Pfft, who knows. If you can't have something your way you just sling some legal girth around. Blizzard has multiple Dota projects underway (Starcraft 2 Dota, Diablo 3 Dota, and now there have been talks that a stand alone Dota project is being developed) so I don't think it's any sort of surprise as to why they're up in arms about this.
edit: I swear, the formatting on these message boards and the comments section is so screwed up. It looks right here while it's a jumbled mess in the comments section.
Don´t you think they would have said something 2 years ago if that was the case?
Either they have the right because of WC3s EULA or they don´t. I don´t like if a company who makes the basic game suddenly owns your mod and all rights to it without at least saying so first.
This also was filed in November..even if the Diablo 3 team would be involved, why would they "push it back" 2 or more times after filing it? It's not like they would not know that it's not decided in a week or a month.
Also it looks like they only did this after Valve tried to claim the trademark. Though i wonder why they waited a year, Valve started in 2010. Most likely related to the whole registration process though.
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During yesterday's Activision-Blizzard investor's call, Blizzard announced that Diablo 3 will be delayed to Q2 2012.
Thats not my quote. Sounds like a push back to me. Also it seems you dont need a specific DATE to delay/push something back.
I call bullshit on Blizzard.
Just because a game starts as a mod using one game's engine, doesn't mean the owner of said engine has full rights over any subsequent games built on other engines. IceFrog took over development of the mod, so ownership falls with him. He was hired by Valve, and he with Valve are creating DotA 2.
Blizzard has turned into yet another fat corporate leech, no better than EA or Activision (yes I realize the irony of the last one).
I wasnt sure who Valve was so I initially considered blizz to just be very greedy. However valve is a pretty big company too. However, you took your time to sue them. Should have called it as soon as it was out in the open. Now, imo, its too late to be whining, even if you did have a point.
They have. This has been ongoing, both with Blizzard and a number of the DOTA people being involved, and didn't just start recently.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dota_2
Where's Icefrog and his say or did he do the dumb move and sell his idea...instead of spreading it too valve and riot and blizzard..
"mod"
I am not exactly a fan of either of these companies, but I think both are good, so I like to think I don't have a biased opinion.
I feel strongly that Blizzard is in the right to do this. When players create maps using blizzards program and use blizzards bnet service to send them to other players and blizzards service to play with them for years and years on end under a EULA that clearly gives rights of user-created content to blizzard then blizzard should have exclusive rights to that content... ESPECIALLY bad if another company tries to copyright the name that blizzard has been authorizing for years now on its services. Thats just too far. I think blizzard would have had a case to stop a rip off of its game (DOTA) from being released entirely, and at the least to stop someone from copyrighting the name.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients
Personally I think since blizzard did not create it they shouldn't have any right to sue.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/17/riot-games-dev-counter-files-dota-trademark/
Pendragon: I think the best-case scenario would be that nobody owns the trademark to the DotA name. But if Valve were to ultimately gain the rights, I hope that they would abandon the trademark and release it to the community to allow them to continue to modify, play and experience DotA for free. That’s what DotA is all about.
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Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/The world editor blizzard gives its players is not for designing games to be ported sold independently, it is for users to create content that can be enjoyed on battle.net. I think that the widespread porting of tower defense and DOTA-esqe games should provoke action on blizzards part, big time.
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They are simply suing to keep Valve from trademarking DOTA. Considering Blizzard will be releasing Blizzard DOTA, this makes sense. It will be interesteing to see how this works out since Blizzard didn't actually create DOTA - it was a mod.
Well he is heading up the DOTA 2 project for Valve sooo
A lot of you aren't reading this correctly. Blizzard is actually, most likely, the good guy here. They're not suing to own the DoTA trademark, they're suing to PREVENT Valve from doing so. DoTA is a project that's community-based and bigger than either of those companies and thus affects FAR more than just Valve and Blizzard products. It's in everyone's best interest that Blizzard wins their suit. Valve are the greedy bastards trying to own something they don't.
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