News Blizzard files objection to Valve's DOTA trademark

Valve's attempt to trademark DOTA has come up against predictable opposition.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2012/02/10/blizzard-objects-valve-dota/1

 

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Must've been a quiet day in Blizzards legal department, or they needed a new watercooler and filing the protest meant they could charge Blizzard a few grand.

 

If you are referring to Defense of the ancients well yes that is Blizzard's IP, I believe the original name was Aeon of Strife for starcraft 1.

However at any stage Blizzard could have pulled the plug but they didn't and continued to let independent people use their map to create a game.

It's quite clear that while Blizzard didn't exactly help much they didn't get in the way either, what's even clearer is that Valve has absolutely nothing to do with it and have jumped on it as a way of making money.
I predict Valve will just change the name from DOTA 2 to something else.

 

DOTA is a Fan made Map for Wacraft 3

blizzard had no say in its creation and there is 100s of clones that are titled something else but its still the same game.

Valve have little or no claim in this matter either.

 

ActiBlizzard, who is slowly backing out of user made mods in its own games... this seems like a dick move on their part.

I think they should make a world of warcraft fps on consoles and call it a day. Turkey is done.

 

Call of Warcraft? World of Modern Warfare? Modern Starfare? Call of Modern Starwarfarecraft? (I can see George Lucas getting pissy about the last one )

 

So, Activision Blizzard don't like Valve Trademarking something they don't even own themselves....sounds a bit dubious. Almost as dubious as when, say, Vivendi (who own Activision Blizzard) were illegally distributing copies of Half-Life 2 to Internet Cafes across America in 2004 and got sued for Copyright Infringement.

World of Modernfailcraft methinks

 

Seems a bit silly to me. DOTA 2 is an exact clone of DOTA 1 except in a different engine. It's basically a direct sequel in that regard. They're removed all of the references to Blizzard's property (changing the names of characters/items that exist in warcraft lore) deliberately to avoid this. It's the same game, why should it not be called 'DOTA'? I don't really agree with them trying to trademark 'DOTA', but it's not going to affect Blizzard. Everyone knows that DOTA isn't actually made by them, it's just in their game.

 

Just wait until write it into the EULA of games that any mod created for their games are owned and licensed by said company.

 

I can see Blizzard's objection to Valve copyrighting a name that's been associated with their product for years, but they've shot themselves in the foot trying to claim they have had anything to do with it.

If they'd simply said "the name shouldn't be copyrighted by anyone" they'd have a much more convincing case. Sadly it seems their arrogance has got the better of them.

 

Publicity stunt to get their name associated with DOTA 2?
This probably won't go anywhere but it'd be a shame if Valve ended up backing down and changing the name.

 

Either the name will be changed or a deal will be done. Other than ActiBlizzard throwing around its MW franchise profits to sue people, it's not real news yet. For the moment the lawsuit hasn't extended to the game content itself and let's hope the name is all they will quibble over.

 

This should be settled with a game of DOTA.

 

That's already the case for many games that officially support modding and has been for years.

For instance, part of the EULA of the Skyrim Creatin Kit is that you give Bethesda permission to use your mods for anything they want, ever, including turning them into paid DLC or using them in promo material; in exchange for getting to use the CK to begin with; with no expectation of royalties, payment, credit, copyright or acknowledgement.

Modding is a murky area, IP-wise and always has been; since a huge number of mods rely on re-distributing modified content that was created/owned by the developer/publisher of the game.

 

This will all be academic. I really don't see DotA 2 stealing back many players from the hugely popular League of Legends.

On the case itself, I dont' really see Blizzard's claim.

 

''That, Blizzard claims, is something up with which it shall not put.''
That, is an absolutely AWESOME sentence!

 

LoL is free to play and has far less of a learning curve, IMO DOTA 2 will only grab the player base of DOTA and possibly HoN.

 

it was the fans that came up with the word "DOTA" in the warcraft 3 map creator - blizzard had nothing to do with its creation so in essence no one really owns it from either.

It is a case likely to be whoever gets the name first will own it and between blizzard and valve; looks like valve are the only ones applying for it as there were literally hundreds of random maps created for people to use and DOTA wasnt the only one; it was just one of the more popular ones thats all.

 

That could get pretty fun. Look forward to v1.04 of Sloth's Hardcore Sex and Perverse Fetishes Mod! Officially owned and licensed!

+1 to this. They'll have a hard time arguing why Valve can't have rights to it if they constantly have to justify how they claim to have rights in the first place. Valve's lawyers will have a field day with this.

In my experience with Dota 2 players this is very much the case. It's being developed to be as close to DotA 1 as possible to transition that playerbase into a newer game with various streamlined features of a new engine while maintaining the same gameplay. Valve have stated a desire to help new players learn but critically are not changing or watering down the gameplay to achieve this. This is a key selling point and causes somewhat of a rift in the greater MOBA playerbase, just like with HoN vs. LoL the two are largely separate: players either like one or the other so neither game really steals from the other.