Blizzard’s upcoming multiplayer shooter Overwatch might have a brand new name very soon. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) have suspended Blizzard’s trademark of the word ‘Overwatch’. The reason for the claim is that the Word ‘Overwatch’ was already trademarked back in July 2014 by the company Innovis Labs for their smartphone app.
Blizzard made no response or argument as to why the claim shouldn’t go ahead, so the suspension has gone through pending a final decision. In the simplest of terms, this means that Blizzard will not be able to continue using the word ‘Overwatch’ for their game. The most likely outcome in all of this is a complete re branding of Overwatch with a brand new name. However, similar cases in the past have resulted in a company keeping a previously trademarked name, examples like Microsoft who suffered a similar fate in 2012 with the Killer Instinct trademark.
Overwatch was announced at Blizzcon 2014. The game is a team based multiplayer shooter that is set to release on PC and Mac. No release date for Overwatch has been announced yet.
Source: NeoGAF
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