Blizzard Throws Down With Valve Over DOTA Trademark

[jizzytissue]

team fortress was a mod for quake and the gold source engine [half life 1 engine] is just a heavy modification of the quake engine. valve make good games but they can't for the life of them make original ides besides hl and portal the rest are sequels to mods so fair play to valve and blizzard activision you didn't make dota or copy right it so... you can't deny valve the right to make dota 2 m'kay

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

I think they should do it together. God knows both companies probably have a epic man-crush on each other. They are both PC power houses.

 

[Kinichie]

Let's look at this from both angles here.

DOTA is a mod on Warcraft 3, and has been around for many many years. Now being trademarked by Valve.

Counter Strike is a mod for Half Life, which has been around for longer. Yes I believe Valve owns this now (And Day of Defeat), but before they did, what if Blizzard tried to make a Counter Strike 2?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Let's look at this from both angles here.

DOTA is a mod on Warcraft 3, and has been around for many many years. Now being trademarked by Valve.

Counter Strike is a mod for Half Life, which has been around for longer. Yes I believe Valve owns this now (And Day of Defeat), but before they did, what if Blizzard tried to make a Counter Strike 2?

Considering Valve co-developed Counterstrike and Half-Life 2 (I remember CS when it was called Action Quake 2, and on the vanilla Q2 engine that eventually became the Half-Life variant) there was no such conflict of interest at the time.

Valve was formed primarily from modders; or "Garage Gamers" as coined by John Carmack(IIRC), at the time (another example of that sort of relationship is Starsiege: Tribes -> Tribes 2. They called themselves "Garage Games" for a reason).

This is simply two different established companies fighting over a trademark, and I question whether Blizzard can actually claim ownership of work CONCEPTS made with their editor, since that would be like Microsoft claiming ownership of any concepts you type up in Microsoft Word.
The precedent for that hasn't been set yet, though I have little to no doubt it will favor the rich business with lawyers, as the law always does.

 

[Parnage]

The real sad bit here is how very distrusting you guys are of a company. Even more so when they are on the record for a position but you consider it a lie. Because Blizzard is well known for lieing and treating it's community horridly? Right? No.. No of course not. Just because you have a gripe against them doesn't mean they have a gripe against you.

Dota should be a term for all. Valve trying to claim it for themselves is to be blunt, bullshit. As Blizzard is the only one standing against it, of course I agree with them. And because the history shows that they are not likely to screw people over at least intentionally I am going to say they might just want it for everyone to use so they too can be part of that everyone. I am not ignorant to how the industry works but I also realize it's a Win win for Blizzard if it stays how it is now.

If they turn around and do it themselves I'd want Valve/Riot and whoever else to stop them. However I doubt they will because they don't need to.

 

[walrusaurus]

Since the article didn't really make it clear. Blizzard isn't actually trying to trademark "DotA" for themselves, they are simply trying to prevent Valve from doing so. Personally I don't think anyone should be allowed the trademark to the word Dota at this point, its become synonymous with the genre.

 

[Starke]

Since the article didn't really make it clear. Blizzard isn't actually trying to trademark "DotA" for themselves, they are simply trying to prevent Valve from doing so. Personally I don't think anyone should be allowed the trademark to the word Dota at this point, its become synonymous with the genre.

Actually Blizzard already has the "DotA" trademark, either from their own filing or because DOTA-AllStars LLC registered it, and was later eaten by Blizzard.

 

[Do4600]

I thought Blizzard's original stance was that since it was a Community game, Valve had no right to use it. Now they're saying that it is their right to use as they see fit?

There's nothing in here about Blizzard attempting to get the rights for DoTA, they are claiming opposition based on the likely hood of confusion between DoTA which is exclusively on Warcraft 3, a blizzard game, and DoTA 2, a valve game. I think they have grounds for that proceeding. But they are only trying to stop valve from claiming DoTA, they are NOT trying to claim the rights to DoTA.

 

[Do4600]

Let's look at this from both angles here.

DOTA is a mod on Warcraft 3, and has been around for many many years. Now being trademarked by Valve.

Counter Strike is a mod for Half Life, which has been around for longer. Yes I believe Valve owns this now (And Day of Defeat), but before they did, what if Blizzard tried to make a Counter Strike 2?

That's a very good point, yeah, it wouldn't be illegal, but it would still be underhanded bullshit.

 

[Starke]

I thought Blizzard's original stance was that since it was a Community game, Valve had no right to use it. Now they're saying that it is their right to use as they see fit?

There's nothing in here about Blizzard attempting to get the rights for DoTA, they are claiming opposition based on the likely hood of confusion between DoTA which is exclusively on Warcraft 3, a blizzard game, and DoTA 2, a valve game. I think they have grounds for that proceeding. But they are only trying to stop valve from claiming DoTA, they are NOT trying to claim the rights to DoTA.

Oddly enough, they actually are claiming they already do have the rights to DOTA. Apparently back in 2008 DOTA-Allstars (the company that owned the website) trademarked "Defense of The Ancients", last year Blizzard bought DOTA-AllStars including their trademarks.

 

[Do4600]

I thought Blizzard's original stance was that since it was a Community game, Valve had no right to use it. Now they're saying that it is their right to use as they see fit?

There's nothing in here about Blizzard attempting to get the rights for DoTA, they are claiming opposition based on the likely hood of confusion between DoTA which is exclusively on Warcraft 3, a blizzard game, and DoTA 2, a valve game. I think they have grounds for that proceeding. But they are only trying to stop valve from claiming DoTA, they are NOT trying to claim the rights to DoTA.

Oddly enough, they actually are claiming they already do have the rights to DOTA. Apparently back in 2008 DOTA-Allstars (the company that owned the website) trademarked "Defense of The Ancients", last year Blizzard bought DOTA-AllStars including their trademarks.

Let me make sure I have this straight, the mapmakers that made the map for Warcraft III called "DoTA-Allstars" made a webpage for the map. Then the map makers trademarked the phrase "Defense of The Ancients" and last year Blizzard bought the webpage and the associated trademarks? Or did Blizzard buy the map and the associated trademarks? Are the owners of the DoTA Allstars website like two guys in a basement or is it a legitimate financed business that had plans of producing a stand alone game? If this is so how did valve receive the rights to put up a website?

If Blizzard actually owns the phrase "Defense of the Ancients" can Valve claim that the letters of D.O.T.A. 2 mean something else and avoid the trademark battle?

This just raises further questions, if Blizzard already owns the trademark then why didn't Valve start under another name for the game?

 

[Starke]

Let me make sure I have this straight, the mapmakers that made the map for Warcraft III called "DoTA-Allstars" made a webpage for the map.

Going off their court filing, I'll answer to the best of my ability.

Then the map makers trademarked the phrase "Defense of The Ancients" and last year Blizzard bought the webpage and the associated trademarks?

Basically, though it's a little fuzzy on if it was the map makers or Blizzard that filed the initial trademark claim. Though, by now that's an academic distinction.

Or did Blizzard buy the map and the associated trademarks?

Blizzard bought the company the map makers founded and all it's associated intellectual property rights.

Are the owners of the DoTA Allstars website like two guys in a basement or is it a legitimate financed business that had plans of producing a stand alone game?

The two guys in a basement incorporated the website and transferred all their intellectual property rights to DOTA-AllStars LLC in 2008. It isn't apparent that they ever intended to produce a stand alone game on their own. The LLC appears to have been set up in specific relation to their DOTA work, though if this was intended as a liability shield, to court blizzard, just to manage ad revenue for the site, or some other reason, I don't know.

If this is so how did valve receive the rights to put up a website?

Near as I can tell, Valve never actually got the rights to put up a site. Instead, they seem to have done that on their own initiative. Though Valve never really says anything in their filing to defend their position beyond saying "denied" over and over again.

If Blizzard actually owns the phrase "Defense of the Ancients" can Valve claim that the letters of D.O.T.A. 2 mean something else and avoid the trademark battle?

Honestly, it looks like that's exactly what they tried to do, so the answer is "evidently not."

This just raises further questions, if Blizzard already owns the trademark then why didn't Valve start under another name for the game?

At a guess? Icefrog. The guy seems to have a singular lack of imagination when it comes to the game. It's also possible, given Valve's previous litigation, that they genuinely believed Icefrog had the trademark/copyright rights to DOTA.

 

[Do4600]

Now, as to trademark law in general, it may sound, well, really stupid, but they honestly don't have a choice about pursuing this. The term "The Ancients" (referring to the units in WC3) are trademarked by Blizzard. DOTA refers to this unit. If they chose not to file in this case they would be abandoning that trademark. Meaning anyone who wanted to could then turn around and trademark "The Ancients" in some other context, and then potentially litigate against Blizzard for violating their trademark. In this case that other company would be Valve.

I had absolutely no idea trademark law was so convoluted.

At a guess? Icefrog.

Thanks for the details!

 

[Starke]

I had absolutely no idea trademark law was so convoluted.

With the caveat that I'm not a lawyer, and I never studied trademark law while I was in school... the undergrad law classes I took were enough to scare me off law school...

The basic idea behind trademark law is to protect an individual's identity in the market. You trademark your company's logo so someone else can't use it, you trademark your products so no one else can turn out cheap knockoffs of your product.

With copyrights (which I did study formally), when a company goes under, those properties are almost always sold off as part of the bankruptcy. If there's a TV series or comic book you loved from a company that went out of business, it's a pretty safe bet that someone bought the rights to it at some point.

For instance: the rights to everything CrossGen comics published ended up with Disney after CrossGen went out of business. Disney had nothing to do with it, but they picked up the rights on the off chance they'd be useful later.

While I'm not sure if this can happen with trademarks, the law appears to suggest that it shouldn't be expected to. If you want to name your product something, and that matches someone else's product from 10 years ago, it's on them to let you know they exist, and that they still hold the rights.

The concept seems to be that if the other business folded, there would be no reason for them to care about you registering their trademarks, and it would be an unreasonable burden to ask every business to go through the entire archive of trademarks whenever they wanted to fire up something new.

I'm not sure if this helps clarify or only makes things more confusing, but I hope it's the former. Anyway, sorry if this is more information than you care about.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I had absolutely no idea trademark law was so convoluted.

With the caveat that I'm not a lawyer, and I never studied trademark law while I was in school... the undergrad law classes I took were enough to scare me off law school...

The basic idea behind trademark law is to protect an individual's identity in the market. You trademark your company's logo so someone else can't use it, you trademark your products so no one else can turn out cheap knockoffs of your product.

With copyrights (which I did study formally), when a company goes under, those properties are almost always sold off as part of the bankruptcy. If there's a TV series or comic book you loved from a company that went out of business, it's a pretty safe bet that someone bought the rights to it at some point.

For instance: the rights to everything CrossGen comics published ended up with Disney after CrossGen went out of business. Disney had nothing to do with it, but they picked up the rights on the off chance they'd be useful later.

While I'm not sure if this can happen with trademarks, the law appears to suggest that it shouldn't be expected to. If you want to name your product something, and that matches someone else's product from 10 years ago, it's on them to let you know they exist, and that they still hold the rights.

The concept seems to be that if the other business folded, there would be no reason for them to care about you registering their trademarks, and it would be an unreasonable burden to ask every business to go through the entire archive of trademarks whenever they wanted to fire up something new.

I'm not sure if this helps clarify or only makes things more confusing, but I hope it's the former. Anyway, sorry if this is more information than you care about.

A trademark must be in active use to be legitimate. I am unsure about the period of inactivity required for a trademark claim to become defunct. I assume that a company may buy a trademark when they purchase another company but they have to actually continue its use to maintain that claim. Blizzard is essentially saying that DotA has been used in exclusive association with their product for about 7 years and so they should have a solid claim on it as trademark.

As I assume you would probably realize Icefrog has no trademark claim simply for having worked on the original, he would have actually had to run a business that the mark was associated with. A lot of people here don't realize that he can "own" the copyright to the mod and that has absolutely no bearing on his ability to use "DOTA" as a trademark. At the worst Blizzard may be required to pay him fairly for producing the name DOTA in the first place but from what I have read he didn't and so could not even make that much of a claim. The most powerful claim against Blizzard's is that it is essentially public domain but of course that would just undermine Valve's claim and so they can not really use that argument.

caveat: I have never attended law school.

 

[Starke]

caveat: I have never attended law school.

You should, if you can handle the alcohol poisoning, anyway. That was a very coherent and succinct breakdown that I've been fumbling over for for about three days now. Thanks.

EDIT: The Icefrog thing seems to be that Valve genuinely believed he had the proper IP rights. I don't know if that was because Icefrog lied to them, in which case they failed to do due diligence, or if he simply misrepresented his role in the creation of the original mod and they made incorrect assumptions based off that. I'm making this off their previous attempt to sue another company for working on a DOTA title a couple years ago, though I don't remember the details, sorry.