Quote Originally Posted by ollieisamuppet View Post
If nobody currently owns (in the legal sense) the trademark for DOTA, then technically, anyone is free to register it. Hell, even you or I could.

If they cared so much about it as an IP, why didn't they buy it themselves? They already admitted they've had 7 years to do it. Besides (and please, correct me if I'm wrong here) Valve have a history of *purchasing* mods and bettering them. Left4Dead also started as a mod and has now become an extremely valuable license to them.

How can you deny someone the right to register a trademark you don't own yourself?

If you claim ownership of everything "by extension", where does it end?
Surely most western countries allow for trademarks that are made by "usage", not just registration (every country in the EU sure do, and I thought the US was supposed to be sorta similar, what with that TRIPS-treaty and all)? That along with additional protection for well-known companies (I can't register the trademark "Pokémon" for my new shampoo, even if Nintendo doesn't sell Pokémon Shampoo... which they probably do) would prevent just anyone from "stealing" trademarks.

Gezegond: Copyright to something doesn't mean that the title of the thing that you've created is suddenly your trademark.

What I don't personally understand is why the hell Activizzard even wants the trademark. They don't own or offer this product.