Valve and Blizzard Come to Agreement Over DotA Trademark

Blizzard and Valve had come to blows over the DotA name. DotA, short for Defense of the Ancients, is a mod for Warcraft III that spawned the MOBA genre. Valve’s been developing the sequel to Defense of the Ancients, aptly titled DotA 2. Blizzard’s been developing a DotA sequel of its own and decided to take Valve to court, stating that since DotA was a mod for a Blizzard game and has been used in association with the Blizzard name, Valve had no right to register or use the DotA name.

The two companies have finally come to an agreement over the trademark dispute. Valve’s to retain the DotA commercial trademark and will be allowed to go through with titling DotA 2 as such. Blizzard will retain non-commercial use of the trademark, meaning that Blizzard will be allowed to continue promoting DotA material with its community. However, since it cannot use the trademark commercially, Blizzard has decided to rename its DotA sequel Blizzard All-Stars.

In regards to the settlement, Valve boss Gabe Newell remarked, “We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one. We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”

There have been plenty of ugly lawsuits in the videogame world as of late. It’s nice to be able to see two videogame publishing giants come to an amicable agreement for once.

  • kcorp2003
    yeah sure thing gabe "We both want to focus on the things our fans care about" then where's episode 3?
    Reply
  • Tanatos
    Soooo Valve won?
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Give it a rest, already! There are plenty of other games to play until HL2:Ep 3 comes out. :sarcastic:
    Reply
  • kcorp2003
    darkersonGive it a rest, already! There are plenty of other games to play until HL:Ep 3 comes out.
    i don't have that luxury. My life span is short.
    Reply
  • frombehind
    well, at least they agreed on something... I would really like to play the games when they do release them ^^
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    kcorp2003i don't have that luxury. My life span is short.Sounds like a personal problem to me. I know I'm not going to sit around and whine about ONE game, when there are so many others that ARE out and worth playing right NOW. :lol:

    Reply
  • sa1nt
    i like how nobody mentions guys who really created dota
    Reply
  • shadow_city
    Yes, what about IceFrog?
    Reply
  • Pherule
    "DotA, short for Defense of the Ancients, is a mod for Warcraft III that spawned the MOBA genre."

    False false false FALSE!

    First, what is this 'MOBA' genre? DotA is AoS (Aion of Strife) genre, and the genre was NOT spawed by DotA, it was spawned by the SC1 AoS maps. It was later brought to the WC3 engine and released by multiple authors. Eul then merged multiple content from the various versions and solidified it into DotA. Guinsoo took it up where he left off, then Icefrog after Guinsoo. I'll reiterate once again, there is no such thing as 'MOBA' genre. It is the AoS genre.

    The name DotA should now rightfully belong to Icefrog.

    Well at least you got the abbreviation 'DotA' correct Toms, I'm seeing a lot of people calling it DOTA, which is incorrect. The first and last letters are capitalized, the middle two are not.
    Reply
  • In a situation like this, Apple would have sued them till they gave up. Glad these two companies settled the problem like educated gentlemen, not aggressive greedy kids
    Reply