Blizzard Disputing Valve’s Trademarking of DOTA

@Jokers_Wild:

I imagine this is true, but obviously strictly being different in a minor way isn't necessarily enough.

The water elemental idea is an insightful catch. Of course, I doubt at this point anyone could claim to have come up with the original idea of a water elemental. Still, you can get copyright in a taxonomy, even though all the animals are not your original idea. The selection and arrangement can be protectable.

Even if water elementals existed long before Blizzard, the particular water elementals as used by Blizzard, in conjunction with other characters and designs, can still be protectable. Dragons are in both Final Fantasy and Skyrim, but you would never confuse the two games for each other, and just because Final Fantasy came first doesn't mean Skyrim can't exist.

Even with all the Valve love I have, I gotta side with Blizzard on this one on a purely legalese sense.

@SuicidalSnowman said:

@BitterAlmond said:

@VisariLoyalist said:

@BitterAlmond said:

Bullshit. Just because people bought WCIII just to play DOTA doesn't mean Blizzard had anything to do with it. The name belongs to the mod's creators exclusively, and since Valve is employing one of them, they have the right to use the name.

if employing someone who might have a claim to a copyright were a legal argument I guess?

It's just inferential logic: if one of the founding developers (who, we assume, owns at least partial rights to the name) is working on the project himself, he is alright with the name being used. If not, he'd be the one suing Valve.

The trademark rights would go to whomever was using the name in commerce. This is why DOTA All-Stars was able to get those registrations, but it also was easy for them to sell them to Blizzard. You can transfer registered trademarks easily.

Copyright may be a better argument, since copyright generally goes to the creator, however there also is the "works for hire" doctrine that says if you are hired to create something, the person hiring you owns it. The problem is you can't get copyright for "DOTA," and even if you somehow expand it to the characters and story elements, it still probably all belongs to Blizzard. The fact that Valve has now hired those guys may help in the Copyright area, but not necessarily.

See, Blizzard owns the rights to the characters, designs, and lore in Warcraft. If you make something new with that, you are making what is called a derivative work, which is either infringement or a new valid copyright. In this case, it was probably infringement (in fact, there is a Duke Nukem 3DO case that establishes this), so while it might be a way for Valve to get ownership, its still a long, long shot.

The lore and assets in Dota 2 are different from those in WC3 DotA. Some of the character designs do come close, such as Morphling. However, I'd love to see Blizzard claim they own the idea of a water elemental.

@BitterAlmond said:

@VisariLoyalist said:

@BitterAlmond said:

Bullshit. Just because people bought WCIII just to play DOTA doesn't mean Blizzard had anything to do with it. The name belongs to the mod's creators exclusively, and since Valve is employing one of them, they have the right to use the name.

if employing someone who might have a claim to a copyright were a legal argument I guess?

It's just inferential logic: if one of the founding developers (who, we assume, owns at least partial rights to the name) is working on the project himself, he is alright with the name being used. If not, he'd be the one suing Valve.

The trademark rights would go to whomever was using the name in commerce. This is why DOTA All-Stars was able to get those registrations, but it also was easy for them to sell them to Blizzard. You can transfer registered trademarks easily.

Copyright may be a better argument, since copyright generally goes to the creator, however there also is the "works for hire" doctrine that says if you are hired to create something, the person hiring you owns it. The problem is you can't get copyright for "DOTA," and even if you somehow expand it to the characters and story elements, it still probably all belongs to Blizzard. The fact that Valve has now hired those guys may help in the Copyright area, but not necessarily.

See, Blizzard owns the rights to the characters, designs, and lore in Warcraft. If you make something new with that, you are making what is called a derivative work, which is either infringement or a new valid copyright. In this case, it was probably infringement (in fact, there is a Duke Nukem 3DO case that establishes this), so while it might be a way for Valve to get ownership, its still a long, long shot.

But all of that opinion garbage aside, I acknowledged its a shitty situation for both sides, but it comes down to who has more of the right to publish it. The thing is Blizzard-DOTA isn't even with DOTA characters, its with blizzard characters, so they really have no reason to trademark it as "DOTA" other then saying "No Valve, you can't make money off of something we didn't even create"

Team Valve. But couldn't Valve just make their game "Defence of the Ancients", and then informally acronym it to DOTA? Or are Blizzard claiming they have those rights from the EULA as well?

@SamDrugbringer said:

@DarthBotto said:

@raiz265 said:

@Hiddenpeanut said:

Blizzard doesn't care about community, they never have! The mod community is something Blizzard has never had while Valve is far superior in public relations and creating superior games. Blizzard is a subsidiary of Activision and we all know how shitty they are. I am so glad Valve isn't publicly traded like those greedy whores. It was genius of valve to pick up the trademark. Imagine how long it will take for Blizzard to make a "DOTA" game, if they ever release it. The point is if Blizzard really cared about the community they would allow the modding community to make this "game" inside a game like how it was originally designed in WC3. But dont be foolish, its never about the community, they're just using this as a scapegoat.

You're really mad.

And really wrong.

He's not wrong. Have you heard of World of StarCraft? Well, it was a StarCraft II map that a modder created and as a result, (for this item created in the Galaxy Editor), Blizzard sent over their legal team to stop him.

Yeah but... it's still coming out, under the name Starcraft Universe.

Of course, everyone else stopped following it after they heard activsion blizzard did something bad, because that's all they care about.

what people care about doesn't change the fact that "activision blizzard did something bad", yes?

if they change the name or not, i'll still play valve's game.

@VisariLoyalist said:

@BitterAlmond said:

Bullshit. Just because people bought WCIII just to play DOTA doesn't mean Blizzard had anything to do with it. The name belongs to the mod's creators exclusively, and since Valve is employing one of them, they have the right to use the name.

if employing someone who might have a claim to a copyright were a legal argument I guess?

It's just inferential logic: if one of the founding developers (who, we assume, owns at least partial rights to the name) is working on the project himself, he is alright with the name being used. If not, he'd be the one suing Valve.

@DarthBotto said:

@raiz265 said:

@Hiddenpeanut said:

Blizzard doesn't care about community, they never have! The mod community is something Blizzard has never had while Valve is far superior in public relations and creating superior games. Blizzard is a subsidiary of Activision and we all know how shitty they are. I am so glad Valve isn't publicly traded like those greedy whores. It was genius of valve to pick up the trademark. Imagine how long it will take for Blizzard to make a "DOTA" game, if they ever release it. The point is if Blizzard really cared about the community they would allow the modding community to make this "game" inside a game like how it was originally designed in WC3. But dont be foolish, its never about the community, they're just using this as a scapegoat.

You're really mad.

And really wrong.

He's not wrong. Have you heard of World of StarCraft? Well, it was a StarCraft II map that a modder created and as a result, (for this item created in the Galaxy Editor), Blizzard sent over their legal team to stop him.

Yeah but... it's still coming out, under the name Starcraft Universe.

Of course, everyone else stopped following it after they heard activsion blizzard did something bad, because that's all they care about.

Blizzard probably just finally wrapped the Dota2 beta around their heads and realized they aren't gonna win.

@raiz265 said:

@Hiddenpeanut said:

Blizzard doesn't care about community, they never have! The mod community is something Blizzard has never had while Valve is far superior in public relations and creating superior games. Blizzard is a subsidiary of Activision and we all know how shitty they are. I am so glad Valve isn't publicly traded like those greedy whores. It was genius of valve to pick up the trademark. Imagine how long it will take for Blizzard to make a "DOTA" game, if they ever release it. The point is if Blizzard really cared about the community they would allow the modding community to make this "game" inside a game like how it was originally designed in WC3. But dont be foolish, its never about the community, they're just using this as a scapegoat.

You're really mad.

And really wrong.

He's not wrong. Have you heard of World of StarCraft? Well, it was a StarCraft II map that a modder created and as a result, (for this item created in the Galaxy Editor), Blizzard sent over their legal team to stop him.

@Korne said:

@cyraxible said:

So Blizzard is throwing a tantrum because they didn't think of this first.

Since no single entity owned it in the first place, the community hardly counts people, those who lay claim to it first and have people who have history with DOTA working on it definitely have the right to own it.

This is more like a pet-project for Valve because they all loved Dota, hell I think I remember hearing it's what Gabe plays the most these days.

Acti-Blizzard can suck a fat one.

Doubt this is a pet project for Valve since MOBA games are becoming the most commercially successful and popular games on the market (watch out FPS). And all EULA terms of agreements state that anything created with mods for the game are technically owned by publisher, in this case Blizzard. Pendragon and Guinsoo at Riot games were pretty amazed that Valve was trying to snatch up the name DOTA since they had no involvement in the making of that game (Icefrog did, but he was such a small part of it). It would be like if THQ had copyrighted Team Fortress 2 before Valve, or EA copyrighted CounterStrike 2. I'm pretty sure Valve would be upset (and would bring it to court).

I expect either a pretty large settlement or Blizzard to just outright win this battle, especially now that they are coming out with their own DOTA 2.

I think you have your facts completely backwards. Sure Pendragon and Guinsoo were amazed, but they did not have parts that were even comparative with IceFrog. Guinsoo put together DotA: Allstars but handed it over to IceFrog after a few months so he could play WoW. Pendragon has never had a hand in the map's development, as he only was the administrator for dota-allstars.com. IceFrog, on the other hand, has been developing it for SEVEN YEARS. So, it doesn't matter if they were surprised or even angry; they don't have the rights to the mod, the current owner of the intellectual property does and that person is IceFrog.

I wouldn't be too sure about Blizzard winning this, either. Their case was presented on faulty arguments, omissions about Valve's case and outright lies, including that Valve has never produced products with the Dota name.

@BitterAlmond said:

Bullshit. Just because people bought WCIII just to play DOTA doesn't mean Blizzard had anything to do with it. The name belongs to the mod's creators exclusively, and since Valve is employing one of them, they have the right to use the name.

if employing someone who might have a claim to a copyright were a legal argument I guess?

Bullshit. Just because people bought WCIII just to play DOTA doesn't mean Blizzard had anything to do with it. The name belongs to the mod's creators exclusively, and since Valve is employing one of them, they have the right to use the name.

Makin' popcorn getting ready for the heavy weight fight of the DOTA universe.

Lawl at all the Blizzard haters because Valve is nothing like them...those same haters will hate on Valve in something other news article a month from now. People love to just hate.

so...that means DOTA2 is gonna delay until after this whole legal thing?

Ugh I don't fucking care! Where is Gordon Freeman!?

Why does Blizzard care so much when they're making Blizzard DOTA a different game? Seems more like legal protection rather than any intent to use the name DOTA.

Read through the comments, wanted to clear the air about a few things:

1) A trademark can consist of names, drawings, design, sounds, colors, and even possibly smells. No, it cannot cover the game mechanics, those are under copyright.

2) Bizzard, for all intents and purposes, owns DOTA [edit DOTA the game, not the trademark]. The fact that Valve has hired Icefrog or Eul or anyone else is irrelevant to trademark analysis.

3) The dates of the filings are (in this instance) pretty much irrelevant as well. Trademarks are all about what is called THE FIRST USE DATE. The filing dates have circumstantial relevance, but aren't going to be in any way dispositive.

4) The "Defense of the Ancients" is different than DOTA argument isn't going to fly here. The full reason is way to complicated to get into here, but suffice to say I can't see how either party could make that work.

5) As for Blizzard owning what was created in the in-game level editor through the EULA, yes, this is true. However, keep in mind that a) they probably didn't even need an EULA to assert ownership rights and b) it still is simply a side issue. Trademark rights are about USE.

You can make any arguments you want about which side is "right" from a moral or community perspective. I'm just giving you the legal perspective.

alot of people here wo has not idea what they're talking about

Just change the name if you wanna trademark it Valve. Or just don't trademark it. I'm kinda with Blizzard on this, Valve owning that name seems real weird.

@gringbot said:

@mrpandaman said:

@TennisCaptions:

Valve is trying to trademark "Dota."

Blizzard is attempting to stop that from happening saying that "Dota" belongs to the community and therefore free for everyone. Blizzard is not attempting to own Dota, but keep it free.

If Blizzard owns the trademark that means its owned by Blizzard, they put in the trademark request just days after Valve did. They want to own and market something they didn't even create. I said it to FateOfNever, but it's almost like saying that any game made in the Unreal Engine is owned by Unreal, just because of a few words in a EULA. And of course, Blizzard didn't seem to want to develop DOTA until they found out Valve was doing it instead and actually had a potential market. Besides, how do you know that Blizzard intends to "keep it free"? You need to buy a copy of Warcraft 3 as of now to play it, so how is that free?

Unreal Engine is a framework you license to make commercial games on, i.e. you pay for the privilege of developing and then selling Unreal Engine games (with royalties? I didn't see anything in my search and would love clarification if you have it). With Warcraft III, you buy a license for the application under a set of rules and then you get access to tools to make mods that have to be free (as in beer) for everyone to use. The EULA enforces that your creations are free (as in software). That's the difference. Warcraft III dev tools are not a commercial development framework.

@FateOfNever said:

As a side note, I propose, what happens to the original DOTA game inside War3 if Valve wins this? Doesn't that cause massive damage to Blizzard because they would then owe Valve some amount of money for using DOTA inside one of their games (regardless of when that came out and when it was put in there if the game itself is still supported?) Doesn't this move cause Blizzard to owe Valve some sum of money if they don't find a way to clear all instances of DOTA from War3? I'm not a legal expert or anything which is why I ask this. And, if that is the case, how is that not greedy on Valve's part? And how is it not greedy on Valve's part to make the acquisition of DOTA-Allstars for Blizzard a major setback instead due to needing to rebrand all of that stuff along with Blizzard-Dota? It feels like there's some kind of double standard here just because people want to be behind Valve and IceFrog and want to flip Blizzard the bird and don't care about any kind of damage it may cause them because "Bobby Kotick and Activision!" Maybe I'm wrong though.

As above, Blizzard wants to keep mods for its game free. Enforcing intellectual property agreements (i.e. the EULA) helps do that and ensures that this does not cause Blizzard's position on dev kits for its games to be weakened.

It is fascinating to see the back and forth as someone who doesn't really have a stake. I mean, I love both Valve and Blizzard and play both of their games, but I DON'T play DOTA2 so I don't care about this dispute.

Turning a "Free" game into a paid one always runs into problems though, so it should be no surprise, same as the Nexsus stuff.

Blizzard needs to get their heads out of their asses and let it go. The more I read about them, the less respect I gain from them, and I had loads once upon a time. Maybe I'll just skip Diablo 3 if they remain this silly. Where did my awesome, innovative game company go?

Looooooooootta people don't seem to know how EULA's work.

It's also nice to see that Valve has become the Apple of the videogame world: it doesn't matter what they do, how dickish or incompetent it is, they still get treated as some tiny, rebel, up-and-comer rather than the huge company they actually are. I'm not saying this makes them more or less right, I'm saying this isn't so much "David VS Goliath" as much as it's Goliath VS a-slightly-smaller-Goliath."

@FateOfNever:

Well, I don't want to give the impression that Valve is 100% innocent, they could have approached this better, but really I think going to Blizzard probably would have resulted in the same exact thing. But Valve has really crawled under my skin from greedy moves only once to my knowledge, which was the release of Left 4 Dead 2 being so quick after the original, and after they said they were going to support the original like they do with Team Fortress, but that's it. Valve as a whole seems like a very generous company, and that has translated to amazing sales, they are against DRM, Blizzard isn't (Starcraft 2, Diablo 3), and realize that when you offer products for a reasonable price, you get more customers as a result, just look at steam sale events, my friend got 30 games for $100, that's $3 a game and these are full games, not those shitty apps on iPhone that only last 30 minutes before getting tedious and want you to pay more money to progress. As a long time WoW player, and Blizzard fan (since Warcraft 1), I can't even count the times I felt like Blizzard was over-extending their business decisions purely for making money and setting pretty absurd prices for very minor additions which only came AFTER the merger, rather then caring about the quality of their products or even having respect for peoples wallets, I mean, WoW in general in my opinion is pure milking mode and it has greatly affected the quality of WoW (with $25 mounts and pet store, Faction transfers, still selling each expansion separately at high prices even though the entire game is only relevant in the end game STILL, etc), StarCraft 2 did NOT need to be a trilogy (they even said it "HAD" to be a trilogy because they wanted to tell the greatest story ever, but then later admitted they had no idea where it was going), and Diablo looking pretty noobish in terms of its 'safe-proofing' for people who don't even seem interested in played video games at all, which is carried over from WoW design. These are just my opinions from an outsider, and I could be wrong, but its just how I feel about them as a company. I compare it to something like the Star Wars Original Trilogy with depth and character designed for a more mature audience and people would would either be interested or not, to the Prequels where its designed for little children who like flashy things that go boom with the occasional goofy robot who spills oil out his backside and makes a funny pose, which is supposed to be for "everyone" but almost always only appeals to just children.

But all of that opinion garbage aside, I acknowledged its a shitty situation for both sides, but it comes down to who has more of the right to publish it. The thing is Blizzard-DOTA isn't even with DOTA characters, its with blizzard characters, so they really have no reason to trademark it as "DOTA" other then saying "No Valve, you can't make money off of something we didn't even create", which to me, is a massive dick move. Blizzard could literally just say, "fine we will provide a better product and we will prove it with our own version", but instead just seem to be like a bully stomping on some other kids sand castle. Valve just seems interested in hiring people with a strong background for providing quality games, which is why Valve scooped Icefrog, even the original DOTA creator has a job at Valve too, but from unrelated reasons. But if Valve wins the trademark, Blizzard would just have to change the name for Blizzard-DOTA, if Blizzard wins, Valve would have to most likely completely redesign every character and ability in an already near-complete game almost from the ground up, and that doesn't seem right considering they have two of the original creators working now for Valve and Blizzard never even had a trademark to DOTA or funded a DOTA game ever in the first place. Also, I am interested in whether or not IceFrog went to Blizzard or not and asked for a job, but my guess is he probably did.

The thing is too, when I talk about greed in gaming companies, I want to state that I don't direct that towards anyone else but the people in the highest positions, the workers are just there because its a paying job, I would never label EVERYONE working at Blizzard as evil greedy bastards, I wouldn't even call the "higher-ups" that either, but I can say that feels "greedy" or "selfish" or even "disgusting" because it does feel that way when I look at all the facts. The thing is too, I was originally AGAINST Valve when I read about this, so you have to understand my initial reaction was to defend Blizzard and thought it was Valve being greedy, but as I looked into it I realized that there was more to it then at first glance. My opinion has changed, and may change the more this case develops, but my opinion here still stands that Blizzard is being greedy over something they didn't even create.

I don't think the DOTA name should be trademarked and Icefrog sure as hell shouldn't be deciding factor of using that term because it's a community organized mod and he didn't even create the mod or the term DOTA.

Nice to see Valve have built up so much goodwill that people will defend them for the indefensible. How can Valve possibly justify filing the trademark? They probably would have enjoyed a relatively clean getaway with the already slippery move of releasing the game in the first place, had they not filed. Here's hoping they're stopped.

Valve money vs Blizzard money, this could go on for awhile..

@Nomin said:

Nothing a friendly game of DOTA can't resolve..

That's brilliant.

@AMonkey said:

Nice to see Activision Blizzard acting like douche bags. Defense of the Ancients is the official name of the Warcraf 3 mod, DotA is short hand. DOTA 2 is the entire name and is not short hand for anything. Hopefully Activision Blizzard doesn't have a case.

TBH, they completely do. DOTA was made using Blizzard's Warcraft III editor. That gives Blizzard every right to deny Valve the franchise name.

Also, none of this changes the fact that League of Legends is for all intents and purposes the real MOBA successor to DOTA.

@gringbot: I've been debating how much I really want to commit myself to trying to argue in favor of Blizzard over the night. I acknowledge that you have valid points to back up your opinion, whether or not I completely agree with them. I've also come to the conclusion that, really, it's hard to point to anything else as an example because this is something of a fringe case that hasn't really ever come up before (not saying that valve or any other company hasn't picked up community projects from other games and just carried the name over, but it is the first time anyone's tried disputing something like that it seems.)

I also think that harping on Blizzard for "being greedy" is narrow sighted. Blizzard doesn't put out a lot of game products. Neither does Valve. Valve, on the other hand, has guaranteed money from Steam that will keep flowing their way to fund whatever they want, or to fund nothing at all, and all they have to do for that is run a virtual store front that takes relatively little effort. The closet Blizzard has is WoW, but for as much money as that game pulls in, it still costs a fortune to keep it all up and running.

Blizzard is still a video game company. I think it's easy to say "well they want money so they're greedy bastards, Valve doesn't care about the money!" But Valve does care about money, it's just that they get all of theirs by selling games through a program. In this day and age, if any of Blizzard's properties went south and failed miserably, Blizzard would still be in big financial trouble. The sheer cost of keeping WoW running and updated constantly is not as cheap as people like to think it is and while WoW saved them from going under as a company, and may keep them afloat if something goes bad, the fact is that if one of their tens of millions of dollar ventures goes bad, they could be in serious trouble. Because of that I don't blame a company for taking measures to try and stay as stable of a business as possible.

But maybe people are right, maybe Blizzard is just greedy and they should let most of their staff go, throw people out on the street jobless because "they need to get more down to earth" or some crap. It boggles my mind how a company, a thing that is there to make money, is "greedy" because they want to make more products and want to expand on things so that they can try to remain alive as a company in this rather unstable economy. Even if you don't agree with this exact move, I don't see how it's "those filthy greedy bastards" for, at the bare minimum, not wanting to have to waste millions of dollars rebranding anything they had in mind for the DOTA name. And I don't see how Valve is any less greedy for taking the DOTA name in the first place (regardless of who they have on crew) without at the very least approaching Blizzard on the matter and respectfully asking them "hey, we hired one of the creators of the original DOTA, that really big thing that created an entirely new genre of game on one of your games, and we were wondering if you would mind if we used that name with one of the creators to create a new game."

How much trouble could have been avoided if Valve had done something as simple as that and tried to settle all of this in that kind of manner? Instead of just presuming "Well hey, why not just grab this name, never mind that it could potentially get us in trouble, that we have no ties as a company to the original, and that we'll just assume that it would be cool if we take it." Regardless of whether or not Valve has more claim to the name or not, that would have been a considerably less dickish move on their part to just simply ask Blizzard up front if they minded. If they did mind and Valve still wanted the name, then take it to the law and let the law decide then, don't just grab the name because you want it for knowing how much money it will help pull in without doing some work to clear it first.

I also have no problem if Valve wins this trademark dispute and gets the name. I still appreciate what they're doing, I just think that the pure, vitriolic hate that people have towards Blizzard on this issue is complete and utter nonsense (in my opinion.) Blizzard has not always been the most organized company in the world, but people are treating that as the same as being the biggest bad guys on the planet. Should Blizzard have trademarked DOTA before hand? Probably. They, being more human and less evil corporation, however, probably never assumed anyone would swoop in and try to take the specific name to make a game. LoL didn't do it, HoN didn't do it, it seemed like most people were doing the smart thing and just avoiding the name.

I also think it could be narrow sighted to say "Well, they didn't hire those guys, so, their loss." I don't know about you (or anyone else) but I'm not going to claim to know that Blizzard, in fact, never offered any of those guys a job. For all I know Blizzard offered them jobs just for those guys to turn Blizzard down for some reason or another (maybe they had other things going on in their life, maybe the pay wasn't good enough, maybe they just wanted to make their own thing.) I think people also forget that Blizzard had to dedicate all of their time and effort and money towards WoW after War3 because if they hadn't Blizzard would probably be shut down by this point. Yeah, those bastards at Blizzard, shame on them for not spreading themselves too thin when they were just trying to stay afloat as a company due to some major mistakes that didn't pan out (I'm looking at you Starcraft Ghost.) Yeah, those guys are real ass holes for trying to play it safe as a company when they were on the verge of losing it all.

I just don't see why there has to be such massive hate for either company in this. Would it be impossible for people to say "this is a shit situation all the way around and it would be better if none of this ever happened if EITHER side had taken measures to prevent it from happening in the first place?" Or, if you believe Blizzard is wrong, is it really necessary for people to go on tirades about how they think Blizzard is such a god awful company for doing this, full of nothing but assholes, douche bags, fuckwads, scum of the earth, so on, so forth? As far as I'm concerned it sounds like both companies made mistakes here and I don't believe Valve's hands should be clean of the matter just because they hired IceFrog. And again, as much as I'd like to try and say "It would be like...." I know I reasonably can't because there's no real comparison I have that comes to mind that is close enough to this exact situation to actually be used.

I know that I can't change anyone's mind on this matter, the people that believe Valve is right because they hired one guy and that Blizzard is wrong even though Blizzard was free to use the term/word DOTA for seven years without anyone trying to stop them during that time.

As a side note, I propose, what happens to the original DOTA game inside War3 if Valve wins this? Doesn't that cause massive damage to Blizzard because they would then owe Valve some amount of money for using DOTA inside one of their games (regardless of when that came out and when it was put in there if the game itself is still supported?) Doesn't this move cause Blizzard to owe Valve some sum of money if they don't find a way to clear all instances of DOTA from War3? I'm not a legal expert or anything which is why I ask this. And, if that is the case, how is that not greedy on Valve's part? And how is it not greedy on Valve's part to make the acquisition of DOTA-Allstars for Blizzard a major setback instead due to needing to rebrand all of that stuff along with Blizzard-Dota? It feels like there's some kind of double standard here just because people want to be behind Valve and IceFrog and want to flip Blizzard the bird and don't care about any kind of damage it may cause them because "Bobby Kotick and Activision!" Maybe I'm wrong though.

This right here, is what it's all about.

It's just greed from Blizzard.

And their TOS can go hide somewhere, wouldn't stand ground on any court. It's like saying any road, building, bridge that used Caterpillar or JCB tools belongs to Cat or JCB, that's nonsense. Or maybe all the code and shit we write in Notepad belongs to Microsoft - you never know.

Blizzard may own the assets, but not the product and certainly not the additional code that was written by an individual.

At first, I was with Blizzard on this issue, but after seeing people's responses here, I've changed my mind. Blizzard is never going to make an effort to make a game like Warcraft 3 again - they have supported the game incredibly well over the years with Battle.Net, but they are never bringing Warcraft back to its RTS roots and would never support a game like this themselves. In fact, no one else in the world is going to come along and put the resources behind a DotA sequel like Valve is currently. It's a great opportunity for the modders who originally made DotA to spread their wings in the industry... but Valve requires that trademark to be able to do this with respect to the makers' original mod. I appreciate Blizzard is trying to protect their IP, but if the content was created by Icefrog and others with the world editor, it's not their work. It would be far more gracious if they just let this whole dispute go, from my perspective, it's making them look really petty.

EULA, don't sign it if you don't mean it.

@Cheesebob said:

I thought that it was called Defence Of The Ancients, not DOTA. Therefore DOTA 2 should theoretically be a fine trademark and name

Basically this.

Valve's DOTA 2 is not an acronym. It's DOTA 2, not D.O.T.A. 2. Blizzard can make all the D.O.T.A's they want.

Is Valve trying to appeal to classic D.O.T.A fans by trademarking DOTA 2 and making a spiritual successor? Yes.

Is Blizzard mad? Sure, but not for the reasons they say. The emphasis on community integrity is bullshit. They don't want the D.O.T.A fans to migrate from their products. That's all.

Blizzard, if you want to stick it to Valve try to make a better game. Talking shit about a competitive company because they beat you to the punch makes you look stupid.

And gamers can see that.

Looks to me like Blizzard isn´t doing this for the sake of the community, but wants the name Dota for its own Blizzard Dota game... I don´t see why Blizzard didn´t trademark the Dota name when that was getting big, back in the day. Thats what happend with mods like Counter Strike and Day of Defeat right?

It seems a little weird for Valve to swoop in trademark the name and make a sequal, but as far as i can tell Valve is making an effort to make a serious sequal. Instead of Blizzard who put out that quickly thrown together thing with Blizzard units, that looks silly and not at all what the original game was.

I say let Valve make this Dota 2 game, it looks cool and true to the first game.

I thought that it was called Defence Of The Ancients, not DOTA. Therefore DOTA 2 should theoretically be a fine trademark and name

Nice to see Activision Blizzard acting like douche bags. Defense of the Ancients is the official name of the Warcraf 3 mod, DotA is short hand. DOTA 2 is the entire name and is not short hand for anything. Hopefully Activision Blizzard doesn't have a case.

@Umberr said:

I am no lawyer, but I have to say one thing that irks me is when people nobly shout "DotA should be free... for the community! no one should own it!."

The reason this bothers me is because actual fans of DotA and the actual hardcore players who are still playing the WC3 mod love Icefrog, and Icefrog is with Valve. Even while developing DotA 2 he continues to update the original with new content, fixes, balance changes, etc. The community has faith in Icefrog and wants to see DotA 2 thrive. Argue the legality all you want, but please don't try and act like you're standing in front of some waving flag with the DotA community at your back cheering you on when you say no one should own the rights to the DotA name.

On a different note, a lot of people still seem to not realize that Eul (the original creator of DotA) also works at Valve. Good to know.

I agree completely. Icefrog should be able to take the game to another level where-ever he chooses, and actually make money from it, rather then just have everyone leech off his goodwill. Also, another thing most people don't know is that Blizzard just wants the trademark for themselves, they're not keeping it "free" or "for the community" at all, they want to turn it into another brand name under their control.

@Rox360 said:

I have no intent of getting back into the meat of this discussion because I don't feel I have enough information to debate, but I felt the need to point out that Epic license out their engine for other companies to use... They're already being compensated for their work, all as part of their business.

Yeah, I know. That's kind of the point of my argument, when people say that we wouldn't have DOTA without Warcraft, while true, it doesn't mean that Blizzard made DOTA, they just made the editor/engine. It's exaggerated, but not far off.

@gringbot said:

@FateOfNever

You're last argument is basically echoing my comparison in saying that Unreal should own every game made within the Unreal engine, because without Unreal, we wouldn't have all the games made under its engine, which of course is absurd. The fact is the creators of the game chose to go to Valve which is their game, not Blizzards.

I have no intent of getting back into the meat of this discussion because I don't feel I have enough information to debate, but I felt the need to point out that Epic license out their engine for other companies to use... They're already being compensated for their work, all as part of their business.

I hate it when Mom & Dad fight.

Nothing a friendly game of DOTA can't resolve..

I am no lawyer, but I have to say one thing that irks me is when people nobly shout "DotA should be free... for the community! no one should own it!."

The reason this bothers me is because actual fans of DotA and the actual hardcore players who are still playing the WC3 mod love Icefrog, and Icefrog is with Valve. Even while developing DotA 2 he continues to update the original with new content, fixes, balance changes, etc. The community has faith in Icefrog and wants to see DotA 2 thrive. Argue the legality all you want, but please don't try and act like you're standing in front of some waving flag with the DotA community at your back cheering you on when you say no one should own the rights to the DotA name.

On a different note, a lot of people still seem to not realize that Eul (the original creator of DotA) also works at Valve. Good to know.

@FateOfNever

Yikes, lots to read and respond to. Before I say anymore I appreciate you talking with me like I am a fellow human being and explaining your opinions rather then the usual trolling I'm used to hearing, a nice change of pace tbh. But I'll continue, if Blizzard wins, they'll need to change every character and therefore every ability, which would make an entirely different game of different classes. It would still be the same style of course, but it would still be a vastly different game. Icefrog has done an incredible amount of work refining the balance and abilities in DOTA, so they would essentially need to start from scratch if Blizzard won. But I do agree that the creators should really own the trademark, but if they wanted to make a DOTA2, they would have to sign the rights over to a publisher anyways. That's something wrong with trademarking in general as a whole, but is the unfortunate reality. But Valve employees work there for extremely long periods of time and are paid incredibly well, so losing on the trademark probably isn't such a big deal to him. But I still think that Valve has more say to trademark it then Blizzard does at this point. Yeah, the hypothetical if Valve fired the creators and made a DOTA3 does indeed suck, but I doubt they would do that, considering Valves track record, and considering Blizzards track record as well, there's only a very small handful of developers still working at Blizzard that made the original trademarked games but at least they're there, at least some. But this is all what-ifs really. And you say Valve wants the brand name but not the creators, which isn't entirely true, they are essentially giving it to Valve so they can make a DOTA2 with them under their support. That's the cost of getting a corporate budget in today's world.

As far as I'm concerned neither one of the companies should actually have a right to the name. The name and term DOTA should just be open because as far as I'm concerned it's akin to trying to trademark MOBA, or FPS, or RPG. It's stupid all the way around.

It's also not stealing an intellectual property. It's not stealing an intellectual property any more than the person that created the second first person shooter in history stole intellectual property. As for the name, that also didn't belong to the people that made the mod. The name Defense of the Ancients would have never come around if not for the fact that it was made in Warcraft 3 and that the premise of the game was to defend the Ancients (a thing that exists within the Warcraft universe.) It's also not stealing intellectual property because the creators agreed to terms before they even made the mod that said "what you make belongs to us." You may think that's stealing, but that's standard practice across all businesses. Any time you submit an idea to a company there's always a little agreement thing you have to sign that says "yes, you have the right to own any of these ideas I just sent you."

The only thing they are trademarking is the name, the characters, and the world/lore that existed previously. They wouldn't own DOTA-style games, thats why LoL and every other game like it wouldn't be touched by this trademark. DOTA is just a name, characters, and world, thats it. But you do have a point with the naming part, but that really seems minor considering its just the name and doesn't really use the original lore or worlds in Warcraft. If that was the case then absolutely Blizzard has a very strong argument.

Also, yeah, Blizzard created the tools that lead, directly, to the creation of DOTA. What did Valve do to help create DOTA? Did Valve, as a company (again, we're talking about the companies here, not the individuals, because the individuals don't actually matter because the individuals are not the ones fighting for the trademark rights, the companies are. for all you know the individuals actually hate the name DOTA and think the game should be called something else) do anything to cause the creation of the original DOTA? Did they give the tools to anyone to do it? Did Valve donate money to the people to create it? Did Valve support websites for it? Did Valve do anything, at all, as a company, to have any ties to DOTA? What you're talking about, hiring creators, is after the fact and has no true bearing on the matter. The individuals are not going for the trademark, nor have they ever.

Again, I will say, if you want to argue to me that the creators should be vying for the trademark and then should be free to pass it off to Valve if they so desire, I would agree, but that is not the case here.

Valve has done more to support DOTA at this point then Blizzard ever has, that's pretty much my argument, and the fact that the creators wouldn't have even gone to Valve unless they chose to. And while its very easy to rip on Valve for all of this, it should be twice as easy to rip on Blizzard for all of this too. The fact is, when it comes down to it, its who has MORE of a right in this (fairly wrong) situation, Valve or Blizzard, and both need to be examined critically.

An another note, you may think that having DOTA comics and so on and so forth doesn't matter or enhance the game at all. I disagree. It may not enhance it for you, someone that only cares about video games within a vacuum. But if, say, the Diablo universe did not have any books or anything, I would care less about that story and that franchise than what I do. If Warcraft had no novels or comics, I would care less about it. The card game aspect, I think, is probably somewhat silly, but, that's because I find tie-in-card-games to be something of a waste anyway, but I wouldn't deny other people that enjoy those games those games based on an idea that "video games should only ever be video games and not branch out into other mediums." Mobile devices can also enhance things (potentially.) I could easily imagine an app being released to interact or have some connection to a MOBA game. I wouldn't use it, but I could easily imagine one existing that people would use.

I have no problem with comics, books, cards, etc of games, it's fine in WoW and doesn't bug me, my problem is they're making them off of someone else's work, through some loophole in a EULA. It just doesn't feel right considering no one in Blizzard had any original creative output in the direction of the game, ever. That, to me, feels like intellectual property theft. And like I said, Valve has no interest in making DOTA into a gigantic clusterfuck of merchandising, and they have the people made the game what it is.

Also, you cannot say, definitively that Blizzard had no interest until after Valve. The only thing you have to go on is when the trademark requests were filed. And they were filed a mere 3 days apart. With the sheer number of things on the trademark list for Blizzard, I don't think it would be insane to think that it could be possible Blizzard was actually working on stuff before the Dota 2 announcement but that Valve simply beat them to the reveal and to the filing for the trademark. That doesn't inherently mean that Blizzard was doing nothing at all (considering the number of things on their trademark) in regards to Dota.

Consider, if you will, August 9th 2010 is less than 2 weeks after Starcraft 2 launched. Starcraft 2, the tool with which Blizzard plans to launch Blizzard-Dota. Do you truly believe it is so far fetched that that has nothing at all to do with when Blizzard filed their trademark for DOTA and that it only has anything to do with Valve? This really sounds more like you have serious beef with Blizzard as a company because you think they're some evil corporation that hates their fans and wants to steal everyone's ideas. And if that's the case, then there probably isn't going to be much point trying to convince you otherwise. Blizzard has done right by their fans for a long time and they are a company just like any other, just like Valve, they are out there to make games that people will enjoy and to make settings and stories that people will enjoy, just like Valve. They shouldn't be made out to be a bad guy just because they believe in creating franchises that expand beyond just a video game you play and want to take their stories and their worlds to another medium for people to enjoy and show their interest in and dedication to a franchise. Blizzard has also hired their fair share of people from the community, the difference is they don't flaunt it around every chance they get.

Again, as far as I'm concerned neither company should have the DOTA name because Valve didn't do anything to help make the original and Blizzard only provided the tools for it. But if it has to go to someone, Blizzard, as a company, has more claim to it than Valve does by right of where DOTA started. Without Blizzard DOTA wouldn't exist, just as it wouldn't exist within the creators. Without Valve, DOTA would still exist. DOTA has also been associated with a Blizzard product for seven years now. DOTA has been associated with a Valve product for.. what, two years? And it's not even a launched product.

Actually, I can say that, otherwise they would have hired the creators a long time ago as they did with the mod creator of Starcraft Universe, also the only reason they did pick that guy up is because he used the name "World of Starcraft" or something similar, which basically shouted out SUE ME, but because fans thought it was cool, they decided to allow it with the name change. But every single trademark Blizzard has created has always been waaaaay before the products were even announced, which is exactly why so many people can predict what Blizzard is doing months and even years before it's publicly announced. Mists of Pandaria is just one example of that. I do believe its far fetched to say they would have waited so long if they did have plans to make their own DOTA, considering their track record. I don't have "serious beef" with Blizzard, I play WoW, Starcraft 2, and will be buying Diablo 3. I am annoyed about the direction they have taken over the years since the merger with Activision compared to what they used to be, but it's not stopping me from buying their products. They clearly have gotten more greedy and aggressive and it can definitely be seen, but that's their choice, and for the most part I'm okay with it, but that won't stop me from having an opinion about it. Again, whats different about Blizzard adding comics and books to DOTA and say WoW doing the same thing is they have Metzen working with practically all of the side-stuff and incorporating it all somewhat appropriately, while the same cannot be said for DOTA.

You're last argument is basically echoing my comparison in saying that Unreal should own every game made within the Unreal engine, because without Unreal, we wouldn't have all the games made under its engine, which of course is absurd. The fact is the creators of the game chose to go to Valve which is their game, not Blizzards.

But for the most part, I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree, unless you have anything more to add. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

Blizzard didn't trademark the game or make/name the original product (Which was called Defense of the Ancients, not dota, DotA was just an acronym people used. dota 2 is not called Defense of the Ancients 2.) and a EULA is not a legally binding contract.

@gringbot: If Blizzard wins Valve doesn't have to change anything but the name. If this was about the gameplay then LoL, HoN, and the like wouldn't exist. The only thing this would effect is the name, nothing else. That's what Blizzard is fighting for. If they were fighting for gameplay they would have nothing to stand on because it would be akin to trying to own a genre of game, not just a name.

The problem though with saying Valve hired the guys, so they have the right to the name though is that Valve, themselves, had nothing to do with Dota. They may have HIRED people that did, but as a company (and that's who would own the name, Valve, the company) Valve has no person ties to the name. Blizzard's product, Warcraft 3, has ties to the name. Valve does not. Like I said, for all the people saying "well Blizzard should have jumped on that name a long time ago" I give you "And the people that made Dota should have jumped on it long before that even." Look at it this way in a hypothetical situation. Let's say Valve hired these people to work for them, they make Dota 2, they then promptly fire those two guys and go on to make Dota 3. Should Valve have the right to do so? By the way you're acting towards Blizzard the answer would be no, because the original guys had nothing to do with the creation of Dota 3. So your argument is more that the original creators should own the Dota name, not that Valve or Blizzard should own it. If you want to make the argument to me that the creators of Dota should be the trademark owners (to do with the trademark what they will after that) I would agree. That isn't what's happening though. What's happening is that Valve wants the name. Not the creators, Valve. Just because Valve has two of the creators employed that does not give them the right to a name.

As far as I'm concerned neither one of the companies should actually have a right to the name. The name and term DOTA should just be open because as far as I'm concerned it's akin to trying to trademark MOBA, or FPS, or RPG. It's stupid all the way around.

It's also not stealing an intellectual property. It's not stealing an intellectual property any more than the person that created the second first person shooter in history stole intellectual property. As for the name, that also didn't belong to the people that made the mod. The name Defense of the Ancients would have never come around if not for the fact that it was made in Warcraft 3 and that the premise of the game was to defend the Ancients (a thing that exists within the Warcraft universe.) It's also not stealing intellectual property because the creators agreed to terms before they even made the mod that said "what you make belongs to us." You may think that's stealing, but that's standard practice across all businesses. Any time you submit an idea to a company there's always a little agreement thing you have to sign that says "yes, you have the right to own any of these ideas I just sent you."

Also, yeah, Blizzard created the tools that lead, directly, to the creation of DOTA. What did Valve do to help create DOTA? Did Valve, as a company (again, we're talking about the companies here, not the individuals, because the individuals don't actually matter because the individuals are not the ones fighting for the trademark rights, the companies are. for all you know the individuals actually hate the name DOTA and think the game should be called something else) do anything to cause the creation of the original DOTA? Did they give the tools to anyone to do it? Did Valve donate money to the people to create it? Did Valve support websites for it? Did Valve do anything, at all, as a company, to have any ties to DOTA? What you're talking about, hiring creators, is after the fact and has no true bearing on the matter. The individuals are not going for the trademark, nor have they ever.

Again, I will say, if you want to argue to me that the creators should be vying for the trademark and then should be free to pass it off to Valve if they so desire, I would agree, but that is not the case here.

An another note, you may think that having DOTA comics and so on and so forth doesn't matter or enhance the game at all. I disagree. It may not enhance it for you, someone that only cares about video games within a vacuum. But if, say, the Diablo universe did not have any books or anything, I would care less about that story and that franchise than what I do. If Warcraft had no novels or comics, I would care less about it. The card game aspect, I think, is probably somewhat silly, but, that's because I find tie-in-card-games to be something of a waste anyway, but I wouldn't deny other people that enjoy those games those games based on an idea that "video games should only ever be video games and not branch out into other mediums." Mobile devices can also enhance things (potentially.) I could easily imagine an app being released to interact or have some connection to a MOBA game. I wouldn't use it, but I could easily imagine one existing that people would use.

Also, you cannot say, definitively that Blizzard had no interest until after Valve. The only thing you have to go on is when the trademark requests were filed. And they were filed a mere 3 days apart. With the sheer number of things on the trademark list for Blizzard, I don't think it would be insane to think that it could be possible Blizzard was actually working on stuff before the Dota 2 announcement but that Valve simply beat them to the reveal and to the filing for the trademark. That doesn't inherently mean that Blizzard was doing nothing at all (considering the number of things on their trademark) in regards to Dota.

Consider, if you will, August 9th 2010 is less than 2 weeks after Starcraft 2 launched. Starcraft 2, the tool with which Blizzard plans to launch Blizzard-Dota. Do you truly believe it is so far fetched that that has nothing at all to do with when Blizzard filed their trademark for DOTA and that it only has anything to do with Valve? This really sounds more like you have serious beef with Blizzard as a company because you think they're some evil corporation that hates their fans and wants to steal everyone's ideas. And if that's the case, then there probably isn't going to be much point trying to convince you otherwise. Blizzard has done right by their fans for a long time and they are a company just like any other, just like Valve, they are out there to make games that people will enjoy and to make settings and stories that people will enjoy, just like Valve. They shouldn't be made out to be a bad guy just because they believe in creating franchises that expand beyond just a video game you play and want to take their stories and their worlds to another medium for people to enjoy and show their interest in and dedication to a franchise. Blizzard has also hired their fair share of people from the community, the difference is they don't flaunt it around every chance they get.

Again, as far as I'm concerned neither company should have the DOTA name because Valve didn't do anything to help make the original and Blizzard only provided the tools for it. But if it has to go to someone, Blizzard, as a company, has more claim to it than Valve does by right of where DOTA started. Without Blizzard DOTA wouldn't exist, just as it wouldn't exist within the creators. Without Valve, DOTA would still exist. DOTA has also been associated with a Blizzard product for seven years now. DOTA has been associated with a Valve product for.. what, two years? And it's not even a launched product.

I have no problem with Valve trademarking the name, because the game is going to be FREE TO PLAY. If Activision/Blizzard ever trademarked it and decided to make a MOBA under that name (however unlikely it is that they would have done that until Valve wanted to) they would surely have charged for it. All this "it belongs to the community" stuff is them trying to play the "we just love our fans" card, when in reality they are playing the "we just love our fucking money, don't you dare take away our chances at it Valve!" card. Team Valve. *drops mic*