Blizzard Suing Valve over DOTA Name
Blizzard isn’t too keen to allow Valve to trademark Dota 2 and has filed a official case against them.
DOTA has come a long way since it debut in 2003. What started as a fan made mode gave birth to an whole new genre itself, and is now getting its own full fledged sequel which is being developed by Valve in collaboration with the original creator IceFrog . However, there’s no denying that DOTA has its roots in Warcraft III, and Blizzard is now looking to claim the DOTA name for themselves. Blizzard is opposing the use of DOTA 2 by Valve and is taking the matter to court.
Blizzard had made a legal filling with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on November 16th of last year. As per the EULA of Warcraft III, anything made in the game’s world editor belong to Blizzard alone.
“By this Opposition, Blizzard seeks to prevent registration by its competitor Valve Corporation 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 3.”
“By attempting to register the mark DOTA, Valve seeks to appropriate the more than seven years of goodwill that Blizzard has developed in the mark DOTA and in its Warcraft 3 computer game and take for itself a name that has come to signify the product of years of time and energy expended by Blizzard and by fans of Warcraft 3.
“Valve has no right to the registration it seeks,If such registration is issued, it not only will damage Blizzard, but also the legions of Blizzard fans that have worked for years with Blizzard and its products, including by causing consumers to falsely believe that Valve’s products are affiliated, sponsored or endorsed by Blizzard and are related or connected to Warcraft 3.”
Valve was quite to retaliate with an official response to the Notice of Opposition on December 22nd. Valve did acknowledge that DOTA did originate from Warcraft III, which was developed by Blizzard. However, that doesn’t mean that Blizzard has exclusive rights over the DOTA brand.
“Valve denies the use of DOTA marks by Valve and its predecessors in interest is under license from or for the benefit of Blizzard.” read Valve’s response.
The initial disclosures are due on the 24th of this month, and will proceed till the 23rd of July. If the trail carries on all the way to the end, the entire process will only wind up on February 3rd of 2013.
Two games which carry the DOTA name are due to be released this year. The first of course is DOTA 2 from Valve and IceFrog. And then there’s Blizzard DOTA which is a Starcraft II mod being developed by Blizzard themselves. If these titles do arrive on their projected release windows, then both DOTA games would have hit the market before the dispute is settled at court. It will interesting to see how things unwind between the two giants. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear more updates on the matter.
