my eyes hurt from this big msg

jk still calls it warlight

Wait shouldn’t Warzone.com be able to keep there name since they were first, so absurd.

Wait shouldn’t Warzone.com be able to keep there name since they were first, so absurd.

Yes, but, Activision is a billion dollar company with a team of lawyers, versus Fizzer,.....who has a GoFundMe page.

TLDR - Warzone can keep it's name. This lawsuit was never about whether warzone can keep its name. Though, it might be smart to change the name for business reasons (not legal reasons).

The amount of ignorance on this thread is putrid. People like knyte try to explain it, but yall don't listen because it's "too much to read." If it's too much to read, you certainly didn't read any of the actual legal documents of the case, which are far longer. So either listen to a watered down version of it, or don't make an opinion on the topic.

It really is that simple.

The lawsuit isn't about whether Activision can stop Warzone.com from using "warzone"; you've got it backwards. It's about whether Warzone.com can stop Activision from using "warzone" (or make them pay Warzone.com money because Warzone.com used it first [well, sort of first- there's a dozen prior users before either of these two]) and whether Activision can stop others down the line from using "warzone" to make their product look like it came from Activision.

https://www.mygamecounsel.com/2021/04/articles/intellectual-property/activision-warzone-call-of-duty-series/

Activision Files Lawsuit Over the Rights to Use the Word “Warzone” in the Call Of Duty Series

On April 8, 2021, Activision Publishing, Inc. filed a lawsuit against Warzone.com LLC regarding the use of the word marks “Warzone” and “Call of Duty Warzone.” Activision is the publisher of the Call of Duty series of military-themed “first-person shooter” games. Warzone.com is the developer of a multiplayer turn-based strategy and negotiation game similar to Hasbro’s Risk.

Activision’s complaint alleges that, in 2020, Activision released a free-to-play multiplayer game titled Call of Duty: Warzone, a “large-scale, highly competitive, fast-paced military combat game in which 150 players fight to be the last soldier standing in a massive, detailed, fully-realized ‘Warzone,’ spanning more than nine square kilometers of virtual space.” Activision alleges that Warzone.com’s game Warzone, which Warzone.com claims was released in 2017, is a “low-budget, niche virtual board game” where players “take turns moving numbers (representing ‘armies’) across a map of the world.” The complaint alleges that Warzone is available on Warzone.com’s website and on mobile devices, but, unlike Call of Duty: Warzone, not on game consoles.

The dispute between the two parties originated in June 2020, after Activision filed applications to register the trademarks “Warzone” and “Call of Duty Warzone.” Warzone.com opposed Activision’s applications and filed its own trademark applications to register the mark “Warzone.” Activision alleges that Warzone.com has demanded that Activision change the name of its games, stop using the word “Warzone,” and abandon Activision’s trademark applications.

Warzone.com claims that Activision’s use of “Warzone” in its game title, marketing, and advertising has confused members of the public, including players of Warzone. Activision contends its use of “Warzone” and “Call of Duty Warzone” is not likely to cause consumer confusion because the parties’ games are so different in style, gameplay, appearance, trade channels, consumer base, and design mark sand logos. Activision’s complaint lists 16 other games with the word “Warzone” in their titles that are available as a browser-based game or on mobile devices. At this time, Call of Duty: Warzone is not available on mobile devices.

In its complaint, Activision seeks a judgment declaring that, among other things, (1) Warzone.com does not possess exclusive trademark rights to the term “Warzone”; (2) Activision use of “Warzone” or “Call of Duty Warzone” marks do not infringe and has not infringed on Warzone.com’s alleged trademark; (3) Activision is entitled to have its pending trademark applications for “Warzone” and “Call of Duty Warzone” to mature to registration; and (4) Warzone.com’s pending trademark applications should not proceed.

The outcome of this lawsuit could have interesting implications for how courts analyze consumer confusion and public perception of games in various media. For instance, when considering game titles and potential intellectual property rights, game developers may need to research and consider games in broader channels than before, including in genres that are not in direct competition.

The lawsuit is currently pending in the United States District Court for the Central District of California as Case No. 2:21-cv-03073. A copy of the complaint can be found here.

https://www.mygamecounsel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2021/04/2021-04-08-ActivisionVsWarzoneLawsuit.pdf

Yes, that's the summary.

Did you just want to post a summary, or were you trying to say something?

Let's just frame this in terms of absolute win scenarios in court, keeping in mind that there are plenty of other conceivable outcomes beyond just these two, which just represent the extremes:

Scenario 1: Warzone.com absolutely wins and gets everything they're asking for
Warzone.com is able to convince the court that "warzone" is inherently distinctive (either suggestive or arbitrary[1]) and Warzone.com should get the registered trademark to the word "warzone" because they're (sort of) first-to-use. Furthermore, they convince the court that Activision infringed on their common-law trademark for the word "warzone" in their branding and marketing of Call of Duty: Warzone.

In this world:
1) Activision is either forced to stop using "warzone" in their products and marketing or has to pay Warzone.com, LLC, for the rights to continue using the word "warzone."
2) Activision pays Warzone.com a hefty amount to cover 3x the damage they caused to Warzone.com, LLC, by using the word "warzone" to market Call of Duty: Warzone.
3) Warzone.com, LLC, is in a position to demand money from anyone down the line who wants to use the word "warzone" in their software (even if it's not for a turn-based strategy game) or stop them from using the word "warzone."

Basically, if Warzone.com gets everything they're asking for, they get a payday from Activision and can assert their right to the word "warzone" to prevent others down the line from using that word (at least, without paying Warzone.com).

Scenario 2: Activision absolutely wins and gets everything they're asking for
Activision is able to convince the court that Call of Duty: Warzone doesn't infringe on any intellectual property rights belonging to Warzone.com. Furthermore, they're able to convince the court that "warzone" is merely descriptive but because everyone thinks Call of Duty: Warzone when they hear "warzone,"[2] Activision should get a registered trademark to "warzone."

In this world:
1) Warzone.com doesn't get a fat payday off of Activision or a registered trademark for the word "warzone."
2) Warzone.com still gets to keep using the word "warzone" because they used it first and, by Activision's own argument, their usage results in no consumer confusion.
3) Activision has a weak trademark to "warzone" that they can use to go after others in the future who try to use the word "warzone" to pass off their own software products as related to Activision in some way. They would have to prove far more than mere usage of the word "warzone," since the word is merely descriptive. (This is like how the makers of Cyberpunk 2077 can't just shut down everyone who uses the word "cyberpunk.")

Basically, if Activision gets everything they're asking for, they can continue to not think about Warzone.com, LLC, and minimize legal & copycat risk involved in continuing to build the Call of Duty: Warzone brand.

---

Hopefully summarizing things this way makes the stakes more digestible. One party's trying to use legal technicalities to squat on a word, get a sweet payday, and strong-arm future market entrants into paying them money if they want to use a relatively common English word[3][4] in their marketing. It's just not the party you'd think.

But I'm not even really sure that Warzone.com is trying to win this case for real. They instead seem to be trying to look strong and get a settlement by working with discount lawyers and writing aggressive letters[5] like the cease and desist that backfired and got them sued. Or perhaps they're simply exercising the same questionable judgement[6] and operational awareness you'd expect of a company that begins their foray into brand-building by blowing $60,000[7] on a domain name they later have to ask for $50,000 on a GoFundMe to recoup the investment on.

Like I said, there's undoubtedly a lot of non-public information about this case. Yet Activision's lawyers have that information too, and even with all they know that we don't, they seem to be awfully confident about their position. They spent the bulk of their latest court filing politely calling Warzone.com stupid and asking the judge to mercy-rule this case before Warzone.com dig their hole any deeper. Maybe Fizzer really is trying to play his offsuit 2 and 7 like a pair of aces, and Activision ain't folding.

As much as I enjoy underdog stories, there's a certain thrill to rooting for the smart, competent side as they thrash the confused D-division-players trying to punch above their weight. It's like watching Germany vs. Iran in football: you think it'd be cool if Iran somehow pulls this off, but then you watch their behavior[8] and realize they don't have the slightest clue what they're up against... and you instead find solace in Germany sending them a cruel reminder that there's some real skill in this sport and you can't just bluff, blunder[9], and fake your way against a serious opponent.

Links:
1: https://trademarkfactory.com/faq/what-are-generic-descriptive-suggestive-arbitrary-and-fanciful-trademarks
2: https://www.cali.org/lesson/807
3: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/search/%7B%22offset%22%3A0%2C%22query%22%3A%22collection%3A(GPO%20OR%20BUDGET%20OR%20CZIC%20OR%20CFR%20OR%20CPD%20OR%20BILLS%20OR%20CCAL%20OR%20CPRT%20OR%20CDIR%20OR%20CDOC%20OR%20CHRG%20OR%20CREC%20OR%20CRECB%20OR%20CRI%20OR%20CRPT%20OR%20SERIALSET%20OR%20ECONI%20OR%20ERP%20OR%20ERIC%20OR%20FR%20OR%20GAOREPORTS%20OR%20HOB%20OR%20HMAN%20OR%20HJOURNAL%20OR%20LSA%20OR%20GOVPUB%20OR%20PAI%20OR%20PPP%20OR%20PLAW%20OR%20SMAN%20OR%20COMPS%20OR%20STATUTE%20OR%20USCODE%20OR%20USCOURTS%20OR%20GOVMAN)%20AND%20publishdate%3Arange(%2C2019-12-31)%20AND%20content%3A(warzone)%22%2C%22historical%22%3Atrue%7D
4: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IlyaSemenov/wikipedia-word-frequency/master/results/enwiki-20190320-words-frequency.txt
5: https://www.newmanlaw.com/how-we-win/
6: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6831632
7: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/06/04/warzone-name-lawsuit/
8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZEI7nua39U
9: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13J6VyPccSxmNRYE7BRx6FiQIqXpdN2S6/view?usp=sharing

Edited 8/6/2021 19:16:17

Just a couple of couple things :

You keep saying Fizzer's Warzone is "sort of" 1st to use. Well I read (maybe from you) here earlier that they are the first with current business existence to be using it (former users don't economically exist any more, therefore have no legal right on this name). That gives a more serious note than your undermining "sort of" expression (I know you're against Fizzer for personal reasons but let's keep things fair as you already do otherwise).

If Warzone wins, it can ask royalties from others using or wanting to use the word warzone. Ok but correct me if I'm wrong (for personal information), it's only while Warzone.com exist right ? And with business related existence (if there was no income from WZ, could it still request to be alone to use the word ?) ? And so, even without ever registering the word as trademark ?

It seems, at the end of the day, that lawyers will eventually have to choose between "being first to (be economically) using a name" VS "having gained global popularity with a name" ?

If so, on this matter, aren't there ever been a similar legal issue in the past, that judges (and parties) could know and use to end (and not even start in first place) this case ? Or is Fizzer a first time ever on this matter ?

Also, if (apparently) Fizzer values the name of its product millions of dollars, how much does he value its product alone ? Billions ? How much usually is IP valued compare to a business value (true question) ?

You seem to be forgetting scenario 3 (which is indeed close to your 2) :
- judges say nobody violates any rules here, move on, things can stay the same
- except that nobody is allowed to register the word "warzone" (but "COD : warzone" is fine) (or even, Fizzer is allowed to register "warzone", but can't stop Activision from using "COD : warzone"). Those suffering from competitors having "warzone" in their name are free to keep suffering so, or to change the name of their product.
- Legal fees (I mean lawyers fares) are to be paid by the party which attacked (and failed) the other. Since both parties attacked each other on different subjects, no legal fees are to be paid between parties.

And more importantly. If you ever need a lawyer, don't call a lawyer, call Knyte :D (and I think you study business, not even just law lol)

Edited 8/5/2021 12:00:12

so warzone more or less started this chain of lawsuits?

if fizzer wins the right to name warzone, he will force activision to rename game, as well as claim all profits from the name "Warzone." At this point, I think activision just wants to clarify it is "Call of Duty: Warzone" (in my personal opinion i believe they advertise the game as just "Warzone") so they dont risk having to pay out retribution. you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. activision would not go under but it could hurt the whole call of duty franchise, even shut it down.

if activision wins they cant shut down fizzer, they can only drown him out (idk how its possible to drown him out anymore than they already have)

fizzer is asking for a lot but it is HIS intellectual property and if activision advertised the game as "Warzone," well fizzer is entitled to the profits :)

activision filed for a trademark then warzone sent a "cease and desist" (which could have been a simple "hey dont trademark, altho activision is alleging they were basically extorted)

now its a legal battle in california, the same state that is suing activision.

you cant mix cases up but it doesnt look *great*

f so, on this matter, aren't there ever been a similar legal issue in the past, that judges (and parties) could know and use to end (and not even start in first place) this case ? Or is Fizzer a first time ever on this matter ?

The World Wildlife Foundation sued the World Wrestling Federation for the use of WWF. World Wildlife Foundation won the case. Vince changed WWF to WWE.

In general (and this is not legal advice), how much weight the court puts on Warzone.com having prior commercial use of "warzone" hinges on the inherent distinctiveness of the "warzone" mark (whether or not Activision are able to argue that it's descriptive).

I haven't been able to find any legal precedent that perfectly matches this case. The closest I found was Ironhawk v. Dropbox, which is a live reverse consumer confusion case over "Smart Sync" going on in the same court and the only thing we know about it is that Dropbox's summary judgement win got overturned by an appellate court.

Regarding venue, this case is in the California Central District federal court, which is independent of the California state government. In fact, the presiding judge in this case is a Trump appointee, so not much in common with California at the state level.

If you're trying to look past legality and into what the "right" thing to do here is, it comes down to whether you think nobody or Activision or Fizzer has some sort of just claim to gate others' use of the word "warzone" in the future.

If you need a lawyer, do not call me. If you interpret my comments as legal advice, you do so at your own peril.

PS: The "sort of" qualification is there because Activision seems to believe the dozen other users, before either party, of "warzone" (some of which are still functioning businesses) are pertinent to this case. So I keep clarifying that neither party originated the use of "warzone" in video games, because it may be relevant to the outcome of this case.

Edited 8/6/2021 19:16:33

smartest post ive seen you make kynte!

edit: i think its safe to say 99% of us arent lawyers xD it is nice to talk about it tho

Edited 8/5/2021 16:56:45

Why was Warlight rebranded Warzone?

It was a name used by hundreds of games already, so it was abusable to get more visits by random users looking for other games

hundreds of games are named warzone? i am interested in how many of them you've played :)

On Sephiroth's note, a search for "warzone" on IGDb (IMDb but for games) yields some pretty interesting results: https://www.igdb.com/search?type=1&q=warzone

KEA Games' Warzone (a strategy game from 2017; https://www.indiedb.com/games/warzone2) gets mixed up on IGDb with Warzone.com's Warzone (https://www.igdb.com/games/warzone--1). The same thing happens with the Warzone made by Digital Dimension in 1993 (actual game is a duel game: http://www.gameclassification.com/EN/games/42075-Warzone/index.html; IGDb's entry mixed it up with this game: https://www.igdb.com/games/warzone--2) and for a few other entries.

It appears this error on IGDb threw off Fizzer's discount lawyers, because in their response to Activision's complaint [Document 14, page 4, lines 17-18], they state:

Defendant Affirmatively avers that Warzone by KEA Games is Defendant’s game.

("Affirmatively avers" in this case means that Warzone.com, LLC, affirms Activision's claim- from Activision's complaint [Document 1, page 7, line 21]- that Warzone by KEA Games, one of Activision's many examples of other companies using "warzone," exists, but further claims in response that this other Warzone is actually Warzone's own game.)

But... Warzone by KEA Games has nothing to do with Fizzer's Warzone.

It's a desktop-based indie tactical turn-based strategy game, released October 17, 2017. Fizzer's Warzone was launched November 13, 2017.

You can check out KEA Games' Warzone gameplay here: https://www.moddb.com/games/warzone2/images/warzone-kea-games1
And still buy it on Steam for $4.99: https://store.steampowered.com/app/712230/WARZONE/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_1

So:
- another indie developer, still in active operation, used the word "warzone" as the name of their turn-based strategy game, before Warzone.com (undermines the "first to use" argument for Warzone.com, LLC)
- over the past 3+ years, Warzone.com, LLC, has almost certainly made no attempt to enforce their alleged trademark (to the word "warzone") against KEA Games' Warzone (if you don't protect your trademark, that undermines it- see "jet ski," "elevator"- because it becomes less of a source identifier and more of a product descriptor)

Looks like there is indeed a lot of confusion going on in this case! Just not any actual consumer confusion.

Edited 8/6/2021 19:33:58

All that because Seph did a joke (to which he forgot to add that Fizzer was planning to go after every other warzone games and shut them down after he had the name registered)

....Couple things Knyte

- What do jet ski and elevator describe ? Sea scooter and lift respectively, which have various brands for these products ? If so, what would Warzone describe ? A turn based strategy game ? Is COD such a game ? A war game based on a map ? Do you think Warzone when you talk about Pubg (or Fortnite) ? If your answers are no then, there's still a chance on this descriptive matter.

Also, First to use may not be a valid excuse for Fizzer, but can you define Global recognition, which is the point of Activision right ? Is it having lots of customers, dispactched all over the world ? If so then Fizzer has a chance. If it's about whichever has the biggest one, then Activision has a say indeed. For the time being though. So every now and then, the brand would be granted to Activision or to anyone else coming and surpassing the popularity ? I doubt so.

Edited 8/6/2021 20:04:25