Blizzard is SUING Valve over DOTA

[Zelkova]

Didnt the original creator of the dota map thing help create dota2? His name was...icefrog...frog..something. SOMETHING WITH FROGS! I REMEMBER READING ABOUT HIM HELPING VALVE!

[Malthe]

Didnt the original creator of the dota map thing help create dota2? His name was...icefrog...frog..something. SOMETHING WITH FROGS! I REMEMBER READING ABOUT HIM HELPING VALVE!

He does indeed work for Valve, IceFrog that is. But the original creator was Eul, whom Valve also got hired.

And @ JoeTang, i know, i personally don't want anybody to have the rights to use it, if someone wants to make a dota, they should be allowed to.

[DrRusty]

Quotes from Blizzard

Blizzard and Valve Queue for Legal Battlegrounds Over DotA
The term "DotA" has long been used as the name for the popular Warcraft III mod, but Valve attempted to trademark the name for their upcoming DotA 2 game. This didn't sit well with Blizzard, with Rob Pardo saying:

"It just seems a really strange move to us that Valve would go off and try to exclusively trademark the term considering it's something that's been freely available to us and everyone in the Warcraft III community up to this point...To us, that means that you're really taking it away from the Blizzard and Warcraft III community and that just doesn't seem the right thing to do".

Valve then countered that the community was okay with it, with Gabe Newell saying:

"The issue with that was, when we were talking with IceFrog originally, he wanted to build the sequel to DOTA. So the reason to call it Dota 2 is it actually does a pretty good job of communicating to gamers what it is the game is going to be. If a gamer looks at this game and you ask them, is that Dota 2? They're going to say yeah, that makes sense. That's a good name for it. That's really what's driving that. I haven't had any customers or gamers react negatively to it. They seem to be pretty comfortable with it."

Two of the developers that were involved with the original DotA game filed to block Valve's application, which is still an ongoing case. In Blizzard's case, they contend that DotA has been used by the community for the Warcraft 3 mod and that Valve has never used it before.

"DOTA, that for more than seven years has been used exclusively by Blizzard and its fan community, under license from Blizzard. By virtue of that use, the DOTA mark has become firmly associated in the mind of consumers with Blizzard, including to signify a highly popular scenario or variant of one of Blizzard's best-selling computer games, Warcraft III...

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. "

Blizzard then goes on to argue that the World Editor EULA requires Blizzard's prior written consent to use for any commercial purpose, which they have granted to various 3rd parties for the promotion of the DotA mod. Valve's response is a denial or lack of sufficient information claim of anything that mentions Blizzard's widespread and long standing use of the mark.

The companies will either come to an agreement of some kind or the case could move on to a trial later this year.

[Flonne]

The only map editor with a clause that states that they own all creations made using it is the SC2 editor. They do not have a shot at this one in a fair world.

[Malthe]

Seems valve won.

http://www.dota2.com/tournaments/international/

© 2012 Valve Corporation, all rights reserved. Dota and the Dota logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation.

[MasPan]

And blizzard is working on "Blizzard DotA" themselves ATM for the SC2 engine. Hah.

Also DotA is a game GENRE by now. Just like rogue-likes are called rogue-likes. Some DotA-ish games are called DotA games.

-

[JoeTang]

That would be MOBA, not DotA.

No, it would be ARTS. MOBA is something Riot Games invented to not be called "that game that's like DotA".

[Malthe]

That would be MOBA, not DotA.

Sorry but MOBA is a silly genre name. Silly as in, doesn't tell you anything about the game.
It describes 99% of all online games, even TF2 is a MOBA.
Gaben said the following:

[MasPan]

There's a reason I -'d my post. My internet is slow here, give me a break, jesus.

[Stereo]

Is this really a genre that needed several games? >_> And not just flash games like Turret Defense.

[Malthe]

Is this really a genre that needed several games? >_> And not just flash games like Turret Defense.

What do you mean?
The two big games of this genre are very different and barely alike, save for the general idea.

Here's the solution.

Blizzard said today it has reached an agreement with Valve regarding the trademark issue with DOTA.

According to the agreement, Valve will continue to use DOTA commercially, including DOTA 2, while Blizzard will preserve noncommercial use of DOTA for its community with regard to player-created maps for Warcraft III and StarCraft II.

"Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they're looking forward to, so we're happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that," said Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design at Blizzard Entertainment.

"As part of this agreement, we're going to be changing the name of Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars, which ultimately better reflects the design of our game. We look forward to going into more detail on that at a later date."

Valve president Gabe Newell added: "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."

According to the press release, the companies do not plan to discuss the terms of the agreement beyond today's announcement.

So in the end Valve really did win.
They got access to the trademark commercially and it's not like valve would ever stop anybody from using it non-commercially regardless, atleast their past actions has shown that they're very open to fan-projects.

[Even]

Oh america, the law of sueing never ends.

[Shidoshi]

For once a mature decision keeping focus on the customer. Not really unexpected though, since it's Valve and Blizzard after all.