Blizzard and Valve Fighting Over DOTA Rights

Blizzard and Valve, two of the biggest names in the PC gaming industry have now come face to face in a battle to determine who has the rights to use the title DOTA (Defence of the Ancients).

DOTA is a mod created for Blizzard’s Warcraft III game. The concept appealed to so many that throughout the years, it has made Bliizard’s strategy game alive even after being on the scene for almost a decade.

Since Blizzard never made any attempt to patent or really push the mod to become a full pledge game title, Valve took action on 2010 by announcing its own created sequel that will make the game a standalone title, completely separating it from Blizzard’s Warcraft III game title.

To make this happen, Valve hired DOTA’s active developer, IceFrog who eagerly took the project.

It was controversial as Valve never had anything to do with the mod before but at the same time, it was reasonable enough as the game was already in need of a major upgrade and Blizzard was still nowhere near of officially supporting the game at that time.

After announcing DOTA 2, Valve attempted to trademark the title but Blizzard, as expected, was not that pleased with the move. The Warcraft III developer has since then showed more interest on the concept of DOTA, even announcing a similar mod for its StarCraft II game.

Now after finally realizing the potential of DOTA, Blizzard has now come before the US Patent and Trademark Office's Trial and Appeal Board, demanding that Valve’s trademark application be blocked. Below is what Blizzard has to say.

“In contrast to Blizzard, Applicant Valve Corporation ("Valve") has never used the mark DOTA in connection with any product or service that currently is available to the public.

“By attempting to register the mark DOTA, Valve seeks to appropriate the more than seven years of goodwill that Blizzard has developed in the mark DOTA and in its Warcraft III computer game and take for itself a name that has come to signify the product of years of time and energy expended by Blizzard and by fans of Warcraft III. Valve has no right to the registration it seeks.

"If such registration is issued, it not only will damage Blizzard, but also the legions of Blizzard fans that have worked for years with Blizzard and its products, including by causing consumers to falsely believe that Valve's products are affiliated, sponsored or endorsed by Blizzard and are related or connected to Warcraft III."

We can’t deny the fact that Blizzard’s Warcraft III game did start it all but you can’t blame Valve too for grabbing the opportunity that Blizzard has taken for granted for so long.

Source: Kotaku