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Originally posted by Vesavius

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Originally posted by AvatarBlade
No Blizzard should not win this. Not a fan of Valve, for my own reasons, but this is like saying that if I use ArchiCAD to make a house, the company that made the program I used to make the project for said house should have a claim on my work.

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No, it's like saying that you used ArchiCAD, and Blizzard's land, bricks, and wood to build 'your' house.
Just because you designed it, dosen't give you any legal or ethical right over it, no matter how much work has been invested on your part... you live there by Blizzard's allowance. It dosen't matter if you have painted the bricks and wood a different colour, or if you have ut them into different shapes. They are simply not yours.
If you don't want a big assed company to make a claim on 'your' house, go buy your own land, brick, and wood and don't use theirs.

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The name is not the game. Who has rights to the name has rights to the name, simple as that. If no one claimed legal rights to it then it is up for grabs. It is as simple as that. If coca cola never trademarked their name then I could make a soda called coca cola and it would be totally legal for me to do so.

Blizzard could only claim rights to the original DOTA but not to the names and ideas behind it unless they actually own or created legal rights to it.

If Valve loses then they just have to change the name anyway. It is not a huge issue.

Originally posted by Kimmyboy

Originally posted by AvatarBlade

Secondly, Blizzard wants the Dota TM for the same reason, to use the name for their own game, it's about the money too.

Thirdly I don't know if you are just assuming that VALVE would get a check whenever Dota, as in let's call it Dota 1, is used, but if it's fact and not just an assumption, I would agree that part isn't right, but I guess that would make sence so they push people into playing Dota 2.

Ok, I hope they both have to abbandon the TM. Am I a hater of both companies now?

Learn to read the complaint: Blizzard does not want the TM of Dota. They want to prevent that any other person (Valve in this case) wants to trademark it.

 

So they don't want anyone to be able to TM it? Ok, understand it better now. Btw, you can get your point across without insulting people.

Originally posted by moosecatlol

Originally posted by Kimmyboy

Originally posted by Otomox

No they shuldn´t blizzard never cared about the dota community in the wc3 life span and never supported it. now after years when eul and icefrog finally start to bring a stand alone version they interested in it, Sorry blizzard this time u wont have a piece of the big cake. And eul is the creator of dota so blizz can go and cry in the corner.

Blizzard held a DOTA tournament at BlizzCon 2005.... promoting the game map editors of WC3 ...

Go figure. They never asked one penny to use the name of DOTA as it was a mod made BY the players FOR the players.

Now greedy Valve wants to trademark DOTA so Valve can catch money out of it.

Great.

Greedy Valve? WHAT?

 

You do realize the issue is that Blizzard only copy-righted Defense of the Ancients and not Dota, which is why Blizzard was absolutely butt-hurt about this situation. Essentially the game would be called Dota, and no longer an acronym for Defense of the Ancients.

Surely you could recognize the differnece between DotA and Dota.

You know that long wall'o'text that you find at the login of nearly every online game? The EULA (End User license Agreement)?  Well when you click accept (which you do, because it's the only way to start playing) everything that is created is considered property of the host company.

Here's Blizzards:

A. All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Game and all copies thereof (including without limitation any titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, character inventories, structural or landscape designs, animations, sounds, musical compositions and recordings, audio-visual effects, storylines, character likenesses, methods of operation, moral rights, and any related documentation) are owned or licensed by Blizzard.

This type of clause is pretty much standard for online games (mostly because they're written by corporate lawyers and not the game companies themselves).

In the end, I hope Blizzard wins this one and Dota remains untrademarked. Valve can name it something else. League of Legends did, and it's not like naming it something else hurt LoL.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Quirhid

Blizzard didn't make the game. That's the key. It is not their intellectual property. It was a mod made by fans and as such the trademark belongs to the people who actually made the game - the modders, IceFrog et al.

Similar games are known as MOBAs which stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (iirc).

Well it'd be clear-cut if Icefrog created DOTA, but he didn't.

So it's a little like if I took over Counter-strike's mod development at some point and then arbitrarily decided I owned that IP and deserved to be awarded a trademark.

But I largely agree with you that it similarly makes little sense for the IP to be owned by the company that created the base game.  Like if Valve tried to lay trademark claim to Counter-strike (before buying it, obviously.)  Although having not read modded games' EULAs very carefully maybe there's jerk clauses that let those companies do that.  Sure hope not as that seems like outright IP theft to me.

Well the difference between Valve and Blizzard is that Valve hires good modders (IceFrog, the modder initially behind Alien Swarm, etc)

As for Icefrog, he didn't create the game, that's right. However when the original creator left DOTA, IceFrog took over, so while he may not be the creator, he was definitively the "top developer" on DOTA (I'd even argue that the original DOTA wouldn't have reached that popularity without IceFrog).

I really don't think Blizzard should win. Heck, they didn't even start sueing (or at least warn) Valve when they first announced DOTA 2, or had that tournament. Heck, it wasn't until Blizzard started pushing their own DOTA for StarCraft that they started sueing. It's just ridiculous.

Originally posted by Kimmyboy

Originally posted by AvatarBlade

Secondly, Blizzard wants the Dota TM for the same reason, to use the name for their own game, it's about the money too.

Thirdly I don't know if you are just assuming that VALVE would get a check whenever Dota, as in let's call it Dota 1, is used, but if it's fact and not just an assumption, I would agree that part isn't right, but I guess that would make sence so they push people into playing Dota 2.

Ok, I hope they both have to abbandon the TM. Am I a hater of both companies now?

Learn to read the complaint: Blizzard does not want the TM of Dota. They want to prevent that any other person (Valve in this case) wants to trademark it.

 

I'm not a lawyer (not even from the US and english is not my primary langauge ), but I think you're missing something:

"15. Since at least 2004, members of the public have come to associate and
identify the marks "Defense of the Ancients," "DotA," "DOTA," and "Dota" (the
"DOTA Marks") with Blizzard and its interactive computer game products, including
Warcraft III. Blizzard's rights in and to the DotA Marks result from a number of factors,
including but not limited to the following:"

You can ckeck those "factors" at (16), (17), (18), (19) and (20) .

Also, at the end of (21):

"In 2010, DotA-Allstars,LLC was purchased by Riot Games, Inc. In 2011, Riot transferred DotA-Allstars, LLC to
Blizzard. Accordingly, Blizzard now possesses all rights that DotA-Allstars LLC may
have had in connection with the DotA Mods and the DotA-Allstars website, including
any trademarks or other goodwill DotA-Allstars LLC may have had in the DOTA Marks."

Source: http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=91202572&pty=OPP&eno=1

I hope this clarifies things up a bit.

icefrog belong to valve now , so dota name belong to valve!Dota 2 have to win this

The only claim blizzard would have with the name DOTA is that when the mod developers made this game they used blizzards tools to create it so they own the material. That's fine for the actual game software, but the name? If they win this, they are saying that any mod NAME is OWNED by them. So question is, how many mod names are registered tradmarks of other companies?

I find the timing of this lawsuit to be the worse of it all. It appears to me that Blizzard is trying to hurt the competion as much they can rather than legitamitly protecting their IP.

IMO the maker of the game should be the one that decides what to make of the Trademark

He chose to side with valve, so valve should get the trademark

Obvious who have actually played Dota for a long time here.

The Dota game Valve is making (Dota 2) is identical to the original Dota with the same heroes, same items, same gameplay, the same community and the same developer.

The Dota game Blizzard is making (Blizzard Dota) is a new moba game that has different heroes, different  items, different gameplay (altho its similiar to all mobas like Dota, LoL and HoN) than the original Dota.

The reason, as a long time Dota player, i think Valve should get to trademark it is mainly for reasons above. It is a morale reason more than a legal one. Valve is making the game Dota, Blizzard is not. Blizzard is trying to take advantage of a name even tho it has nothing to do with it (except from being a moba like LoL & HoN).

Also, Dota has come a long way since Valve started helping developing it. I bet most people on this site wouldn't have heard of it if it wasn't for Valve. Now competetive teams get sponsors, which was barely possible before. So much more money is being invested in the game competetive with sponsors, tournaments & rewards. Valve had 1,6 mill. Euro in rewards in a tournament last august, the largest amount of money in a reward ever at the time in e-sports. This is being repeated this year aswell.

Those saying Icefrog didn't create Dota so he has no right to it, clearly don't know how much he has done  for the game. He developed it the last 5 years, before he started working on the game with Valve.

Valve did bring CS and Team Fortress from a mod to a full blown popular game, i think they should be able to do the same with Dota.

All in all tho i don't think it's a very big deal. Valve has already made their game strong and known enough that a nameswitch wouldn't matter much. Just don't come here and say Blizzard is doing it for the community. Blizzard Dota haha...

Originally posted by dinams

IMO the maker of the game should be the one that decides what to make of the Trademark

He chose to side with valve, so valve should get the trademark

The key thing here is DoTA was built, and associated with, Blizzard since DoTA was made.  It was on Blizzard technology that the game succeeded.  On top of that, Blizzard -who could have filed for a trademark of it and easily gotten it- didn't.  Instead, they allowed the community to maintain ownership.  Furthermore, the biggest issue here is the '2' in the Dota 2 title.  Valve is 'clearly' trying to capitalize on a game built and ran for well over 7 years that Blizzard allowed the community to own.  

Now, there are ramifications for if Valve wins.  This gives them the ability to sue Blizzard over DoTA, and perhaps even, rough sales generated by people that bought Warcraft 3 to play DotA.  As ridiculous as that sounds, the trademark starts establishing grounds for that.  It's a slippery slope.  Blizzard recognizes this as well.

I'm sorry, people.  As much as you hate on Blizzard, they're right.  And, you should be supporting them on this.

Originally posted by Warley

Originally posted by dinams

IMO the maker of the game should be the one that decides what to make of the Trademark

He chose to side with valve, so valve should get the trademark

The key thing here is DoTA was built, and associated with, Blizzard since DoTA was made.  It was on Blizzard technology that the game succeeded.  On top of that, Blizzard -who could have filed for a trademark of it and easily gotten it- didn't.  Instead, they allowed the community to maintain ownership.  Furthermore, the biggest issue here is the '2' in the Dota 2 title.  Valve is 'clearly' trying to capitalize on a game built and ran for well over 7 years that Blizzard allowed the community to own. 

Nothing would make the community happier than Blizzard trademarking the title and helping Icefrog developing it. But they never did. They held 1 tournament 7 years ago and that's it. In fact Blizzard made money from ''allowing'' (haha) players to play the game because they sold a lot of copies of wc3 because of it.

The 2 is there because it is the same game, only with better graphics. The same can't be said about Blizzard Dota.

Originally posted by Kimmyboy

Originally posted by Hycoo

Originally posted by Warley

Originally posted by dinams

IMO the maker of the game should be the one that decides what to make of the Trademark

He chose to side with valve, so valve should get the trademark

The key thing here is DoTA was built, and associated with, Blizzard since DoTA was made.  It was on Blizzard technology that the game succeeded.  On top of that, Blizzard -who could have filed for a trademark of it and easily gotten it- didn't.  Instead, they allowed the community to maintain ownership.  Furthermore, the biggest issue here is the '2' in the Dota 2 title.  Valve is 'clearly' trying to capitalize on a game built and ran for well over 7 years that Blizzard allowed the community to own. 

Nothing would make the community happier than Blizzard trademarking the title and helping Icefrog developing it. But they never did. They held 1 tournament 7 years ago and that's it. In fact Blizzard made money from ''allowing'' (haha) players to play the game because they sold a lot of copies of wc3 because of it.

The 2 is there because it is the same game, only with better graphics. The same can't be said about Blizzard Dota.

Yeah, it is all very logical that Valve can steal - sorry use - hero names like Jaina ...:))))

Seriously, is Blizzard hate this deep ? If you can't see that Valve has ZERO grounds to trademark DOTA as its OWN branche?

Wait, I am going to trademark RTS next week, so everyone who is going to use that word RTS anywhere will have to pay me a fee.

 

They can use the same stuff as the original game because Icefrog is developing it with Valve, the guy who made up most (maybe not all) of those name and ideas.

I don't hate Blizzard, i love Dota. You compare Dota to RTS, being a genre-describing word. I can understand a lot of people thinking like that. But if you had played games like Dota, HoN and LoL you would know they are different, and that Dota is just a game. It's like saying Diablo is genre-describing action-rpgs. Many people associate the name with the genre, but that doesn't mean it should be used as a genre-describing word. It is a pretty new genre and the most common term used to describe them is MOBA.

Again, I can understand it may be confusing if you come from the outside, but for anyone who has played those games it isn't.

Originally posted by Hycoo

Originally posted by Kimmyboy

Originally posted by Hycoo

Originally posted by Warley

Originally posted by dinams

IMO the maker of the game should be the one that decides what to make of the Trademark

He chose to side with valve, so valve should get the trademark

The key thing here is DoTA was built, and associated with, Blizzard since DoTA was made.  It was on Blizzard technology that the game succeeded.  On top of that, Blizzard -who could have filed for a trademark of it and easily gotten it- didn't.  Instead, they allowed the community to maintain ownership.  Furthermore, the biggest issue here is the '2' in the Dota 2 title.  Valve is 'clearly' trying to capitalize on a game built and ran for well over 7 years that Blizzard allowed the community to own. 

Nothing would make the community happier than Blizzard trademarking the title and helping Icefrog developing it. But they never did. They held 1 tournament 7 years ago and that's it. In fact Blizzard made money from ''allowing'' (haha) players to play the game because they sold a lot of copies of wc3 because of it.

The 2 is there because it is the same game, only with better graphics. The same can't be said about Blizzard Dota.

Yeah, it is all very logical that Valve can steal - sorry use - hero names like Jaina ...:))))

Seriously, is Blizzard hate this deep ? If you can't see that Valve has ZERO grounds to trademark DOTA as its OWN branche?

Wait, I am going to trademark RTS next week, so everyone who is going to use that word RTS anywhere will have to pay me a fee.

 

They can use the same stuff as the original game because Icefrog is developing it with Valve, the guy who made up most (maybe not all) of those name and ideas.

I don't hate Blizzard, i love Dota. You compare Dota to RTS, being a genre-describing word. I can understand a lot of people thinking like that. But if you had played games like Dota, HoN and LoL you would know they are different, and that Dota is just a game. It's like saying Diablo is genre-describing action-rpgs. Many people associate the name with the genre, but that doesn't mean it should be used as a genre-describing word. It is a pretty new genre and the most common term used to describe them is MOBA.

Again, I can understand it may be confusing if you come from the outside, but for anyone who has played those games it isn't.

DoTA is a genre.  If you said MOBA, many players would be like, "What?"  But, if you say Dota, most would know right away.

Originally posted by Warley

First, I want to say that I'm a bigger fan of Valve than I am Blizzard.  Mainly, my favorite place to buy games is Steam.  Plus, I don't care for Activision.

Having said that, Blizzard should -and probaby will- win the trademark battle over Dota 2.  Why?  Well, Blizzard actually does have more claim to Dota, due to Defense of the Ancients (DoTA) being built with Blizzard's tools and Blizzard's technology.  Since Valve is using Dota 'and' 2, they are actually capitalizing on a successful name that was built and ran on Blizzard's technology.  Why should Valve be able to monetize on Blizzard's goodwill of allowing the community to continue to develop and own the DotA mark?  It's a community mark, not Valve's.

Valve's pursuit of the Dota 2 trademark is purely meant to capitalize on the DotA name.  In actuality, it'd be like Blizzard trying to trademark MMORPG or FPS.  DoTA is not only an acronym for Defense of the Ancients, but also a well recognized symbol for DoTA style games.  It's on par with MMORPG and FPS. 

Blizzard, on this issue, is definitely on the moral, high ground.  They are the good guys.  They're preventing Valve from trademarking a name that is owned by the DoTA community; which Valve is trying to 'steal' from.

Considering that none of the talent that started blizzard is still there i would think that you wouldn't be a fan of Blizzard at all because no one that was essentially Blizzard or did the games that innovated in the industry is still there.

Secondly, Blizzard shouldn't win the battle and here's why. It's like a company like Turbine suing blizzard for them using elves and dwarves in their game, that's how ridiculous this lawsuit is. A Fantasy setting can be only so much without including these types of races in their game. I believe that's one of the reasons why Trion and GW2 teams, both made up of the original Blizzard team members decided against doing anything similar, not just because they wanted to be set apart from what is now Blizzard but because they knew that Blizzards legal team would have a leg to start a problematic and long drawn out legal proceedings against them if they actually DID use dwarves and elves in their new games and it would affect profit. I don't blame them one bit for trying something different since Blizz's new execs are lowbrow enough to try to sue over something so fundamental to the fantasy genre. If anything they should have tried to sue Bioware for using exactly the same abilities from WoW's warrior tank class in SWTOR's sith warrior because THAT was blatently taken from their game have you seen the side by side descriptions of each ability?

Originally posted by Warley

Originally posted by Hycoo

Originally posted by Kimmyboy

Originally posted by Hycoo

Originally posted by Warley

Originally posted by dinams

DoTA is a genre.  If you said MOBA, many players would be like, "What?"  But, if you say Dota, most would know right away.

Look at any site, here at mmorpg or rts.guru for example, and they describe these type of games as MOBA or arts (action real time strategy). That is the genre. I don't know how you can argue about that when it's right there in front of you.

If you said MOBA, players who are familiar with the genre would be like, ''What MOBA do you mean?'' But, if you say Dota to those same people they would think of that game, and not about HoN, or LoL, or Bloodline Champions etc. Plenty of  games in the MOBA genre. LoL was a game that started developing not long after Dota, it was a similar game with Guinsoo as a modder. I am sure he wouldn't agree if you called his game a Dota. He would know what you meant, but still he wouldn't agree. There are many differences between the different MOBAs. But as you admitted yourself, those not playing those games wouldn't know.

EDIT: Try to see this from a Dota players perspective. Dota has evolved the last 9 years through many patches, new heroes, items, mapchanges, gameplay changes, thousands of bugfixes. Dota 2 is merely the next patch, it brings new graphics and better stability, but the rest of the game is the same. Why wouldn't someone call that Dota 2?

Originally posted by Warley

Originally posted by Hycoo
 

DoTA is a genre.  If you said MOBA, many players would be like, "What?"  But, if you say Dota, most would know right away.

I don't know where you come from but here we call HoN, LoL, Demigod etc. MOBAs. DotA is also a MOBA game, silly.

Wikipedia article

Originally posted by Kimmyboy

Originally posted by Otomox

No they shuldn´t blizzard never cared about the dota community in the wc3 life span and never supported it. now after years when eul and icefrog finally start to bring a stand alone version they interested in it, Sorry blizzard this time u wont have a piece of the big cake. And eul is the creator of dota so blizz can go and cry in the corner.

Blizzard held a DOTA tournament at BlizzCon 2005.... promoting the game map editors of WC3 ...

Go figure. They never asked one penny to use the name of DOTA as it was a mod made BY the players FOR the players.

Now greedy Valve wants to trademark DOTA so Valve can catch money out of it.

Great.

Hows Valve greedy when Eul the creator of wc3 dota and icefor the dude that made dota what it is wanna have "theire" game trademarked.

Originally posted by tixylix

Yeah it should be the right of the mod maker who originally made it and then Blizzard should have to give him some deal to take it like a job offer. I just cannot believe no one thought to get the rights for the name Dota, seems like an obvious move. Personally I'd like to see Valve make a Dota with all their characters, rather than the generic DOTA rip off without all the Blizzard characters and replaced with generi clones.

I don't care who gets it out of those two companies as I dislike both of them. Valve hasn't made a good game since 2007 and Blizzard hasn't made a good game since Warcraft 3.

Portal 2, heretic!

Whoever created DOTA used Blizzard's game engine and they used their editor and they used Blizzard's characters to create DOTA. If he wanted to make his own game, he was more than welcome to use his own tools. 

It doesn't matter what you all think, it is a fact tthat that guy agreed to Blizzard's terms when he started using the editor. 

Anyway who cares about DOTA anyway :D LoL will still be much more popular than Valve's DOTA...

I start to read posts on the arguement of this issue and just have to stop.

There really isnt a point to respond to any individual post when there is SO MUCH IGNORANCE.

Get facts clear before opening your mouth on the issue.

Valve is attempting to trademark the name DOTA.

Blizzard is attempt to STOP Valve from obtaining the trademark

Blizzard has NOT stated anywhere directly or indirectly in any court filed or legal matter that they are trying ot obtain the trademark.

Blizzard even used the arguement that the DOTA name should belong to the community to stop Valve.

Please read the above line in green again.

Ok. So now the arguement should not be about Blizzard getting it or not. It should be about if Valve should have it vs nobody having it.

Does Valve really have more claim to the DOTA trademark than Blizzard, previous developers of DOTA and the community? No, I dont think so. I agree with Blizzard that the trademark should belong to the community.

And yes, the arguements listed include community ownership, which goes a long way in stopping Blizzard from obtaining the rights and trademark themselves. This, in addition ot the lack of trademark in this time does lead to the mark becoming public as it has gone unclaimed or defended in over 7 years.