• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch trademarks suspended by USPTO

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Time for Overwatch: Subtitle Edition?
 

Seiniyta

Member
Overwatch will be fine, at the very worst I have the feeling that Activision would just buy up entire company including the name that has the existing Overwatch name XD.
 

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
Ahh, that makes sense. That's kind of strange, I would assume that Blizzard's attorneys would've seen this coming and rebranded the game before revealing it at Blizzcon. This is only a few months after the revealing.
Actually, they probably DIDN'T see it coming. While the other Overwatch submitted first, it wasn't posted for opposition until April 15th, two weeks after Blizzard submitted theirs. So they wouldn't have known back then. Blizzard's mistake was never double checking the trademark months later to see if someone had beaten them in that few weeks span (which you'd think would be unlikely but here we are!)

At this point Blizzard might be hoping that the original Overwatch filers don't care enough about it to finish the proper paperwork themselves.
 

Laconic

Banned
And Now Their Watch is Over.

Oh, wait... I keep forgetting that Blizzard IS the White Walkers, and that D3 didn't actually kill them.
 

C.Dark.DN

Banned
Actually, they probably DIDN'T see it coming. While the other Overwatch submitted first, it wasn't posted for opposition until April 15th, two weeks after Blizzard submitted theirs. So they wouldn't have known back then. Blizzard's mistake was never double checking the trademark months later to see if someone had beaten them in that few weeks span (which you'd think would be unlikely but here we are!)

At this point Blizzard might be hoping that the original Overwatch filers don't care enough about it to finish the proper paperwork themselves.
This says the filing date was September 5, 2013. Shouldn't Blizzard searched the database and seen that before sending in an application?

And doesn't that April 15th opposition mean Blizzard filed it against them?
 

Cipherr

Member
Meh change the name. Its really not that big of a deal.

After they get through with the displays and advertisements and commercials, whatever name they choose will be fine.
 

Rolf NB

Member
SNi1uHf.jpg


Couldn't find a way to cut off the head of the dwarfen dude
Try a sword?
 

dave is ok

aztek is ok
Yeah, Defense of the Ancients has always been completely separate from the Warcraft mythos.
This is incorrect.
Windrunner is a name in WC, I get it. Doombringer, Necrolyte, Centaur Warchief, Obsidian Destroyer, Tuskarr, etc, are not at all important names to Warcraft lore nor is the name DOTA which they also attempted to contest
 
Windrunner is a name in WC, I get it. Doombringer, Necrolyte, Centaur Warchief, Obsidian Destroyer, Tuskarr, etc, are not at all important names to Warcraft lore nor is the name DOTA which they also attempted to contest

I dunno, I immediately recognize most of these names from World of Warcraft.
 
You know, now that I think of it, I actually forgot Overwatch existed for a while there...
Windrunner is a name in WC, I get it. Doombringer, Necrolyte, Centaur Warchief, Obsidian Destroyer, Tuskarr, etc, are not at all important names to Warcraft lore nor is the name DOTA which they also attempted to contest
Lina Inverse
King Leoric (the Skeleton King)
The Ancients
The Scourge
There are (were?) probably more.

Good thing they never called it Defense of the Ancients, because then there'd clearly be a problem.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
This says the filing date was September 5, 2013. Shouldn't Blizzard searched the database and seen that before sending in an application?

And doesn't that April 15th opposition mean Blizzard filed it against them?
Blizzard has as far as I can tell not opposed Innovis Labs. grandjedi6 likely meant that the opposition period began April 15.

On September 5, 2013, Blizzard did however file an extension of time to file a notice of opposition:

Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. Section 2.102, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., 16215 Alton Parkway, Irvine, CA 92618, UNITED STATES, a corporation organized under the laws of DELAWARE , respectfully requests that it be granted a 30-day extension of time to file a notice of opposition against the above-identified mark .
Source: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/caseviewer/pdf?caseId=86056160&docIndex=1#docIndex=1

They were granted an extended period of time, but I cannot see they ever filed an opposition.
 
Ahh, that makes sense. That's kind of strange, I would assume that Blizzard's attorneys would've seen this coming and rebranded the game before revealing it at Blizzcon. This is only a few months after the revealing.

Seems like the trademark attorney was the one who screwed up and failed to tell Blizzard there was already a pending trademark for that name in the gaming space, but that's a cursory reasoning from browsing the OP.

I think they should call the game either The Next Great Game from Blizzard or just go full in and call it We Also Made Warcraft Guys
 
Top Bottom