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By this Opposition, Blizzard seeks to prevent registration by its competitor Valve Corporation ("Valve") of a trademark, 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. Over the past seven years, the mark DOTA has been used exclusively in connection with Blizzard and its products, namely Warcraft III. Most notably, DOTA has been used as the popular name of a Warcraft III software "mod" file that has been distributed, marketed, and promoted by Blizzard and its fans (under license from Blizzard); that utilizes and is built upon the Warcraft III game engine, interface, and gameplay mechanics; that is comprised of Warcraft III characters, items, spells, artwork, textures, and color palates; that can be played only using Warcraft III software and via Blizzard's online service Battle.net ; and whose name (DOTA, an acronym for "Defense of the Ancients") is a reference to Warcraft III characters known as the "Ancients."
Essentially, this says that "hey, we never actually came up with the "Dota" IP, our fans did. However, even though it's not legally associated with our game, we are still going to sue you over its use because it sort of reminds people of Warcraft III and our company." Keep in mind that a couple of those "fans" who developed and created the mod in the first place are now working for Valve on Dota 2.
This makes no sense! Blizzard has no claim to the Dota name or IP. It was the abbreviation for a fan-made Warcraft III mod. The Dota IP was never legally owned by Blizzard in any capacity. In fact, as D.O.T.A. started out as being an abbreviation crafted again by the fans of the mod. It was just a shortened form of saying Defense of the Ancients. The "Dota" that is the name of Valve's game is a word, not an abbreviation, that again should have no legally binding ties to Blizzard.
Blizzard is really reaching with this one. Perhaps they're worried that their MOBA style game that they announced after Valve's Dota 2 reveal just doesn't stack up?
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