Valve Trademarks 'DOTA' 141
An anonymous reader tips news that Valve Software has filed a trademark claim for the term "DOTA," fueling speculation that the company will soon reveal a new Defense of the Ancients game. Voice actor John St. John recently said he was recording for such a game in a post to Twitter. The tweet was subsequently deleted. Last year Valve hired 'Icefrog,' lead developer for the original DotA mod.
DOTA? (Score:1, Insightful)
Nobody gives a shit.
At first I was angry (Score:1, Interesting)
Then I saw that they had the original DotA developer on board. Then I just got worried that DoTA for WC3 and its clone on SC2 would get sued.
Re:At first I was angry (Score:5, Interesting)
Except they don't. They have the second maintainer of DotA Allstars on board (the original developer of that worked on League of Legends). DotA itself was made by yet another person who isn't involved in either of them.
I'd love to know how you trademark something made by someone else and which someone else has already used on released games.
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I'd love to know how you trademark something made by someone else and which someone else has already used on released games.
It's pretty easy when that someone else didn't bother to trademark their brand name. You don't have to register a trademark, but you do have to throw a TM next to the name every time you use it. Neither DotA nor DotA All Stars ever did this, so anyone is free to trademark it. If the original dev had trademarked it, he would have had to transfer that trademark to allow someone else to use it to make DotA All Stars, who then would have had to transfer it to the new maintainer to allow him to continue to us
History of use (Score:2)
You don't have to register a trademark, but you do have to throw a TM next to the name every time you use it.
Citation needed. Use in commerce (in this case, selling copies or running game servers) establishes a history of use, and history of use establishes eligibility to register a mark. But if in fact this developer hired by Valve has established a history of use, Valve can rely on this to register the mark.
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Citation needed.
Unlike other areas of IP, trademark must be actively defended. If you don't inform others of your trademark, you are not defending it. The fact a trademark was not previously filed and according to the gp post, declaration of trademark was never made. As such, it does appear safe to assume they have never made any effort to trademark or defend a trademark.
Also, this is not Wikipedia or a researched document. "Citation needed". means you are incapable of effective, polite, communication and is frequently a s
Alternative to "Citation needed"? (Score:2)
All too often, "Citation needed", means the author is too dumb and lazy to use a search engine.
So instead of "Citation needed", should people say "Please provide Google keywords" instead?
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Opps...was suppose to read, "Patent/trademark law..."
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Patent law
is not under discussion; trademark law is. I would imagine that regular Slashdot readers are far more familiar with patent and copyright law than with trademark law, simply because far more Slashdot stories have been about the use of patent and copyright law than about the use of trademark law.
its not that hard to say, "I couldn't find what you were talking about. I did searches for x, y, and z. Can you please provide a reference of some kind?"
Is it also characteristic of a douche bag to say "I did a search for x, but the vast majority of Google's search results had their full text behind the Springer, Wiley, or Elsevier paywall, and I am not willing to pay
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If you don't inform others of your trademark, you are not defending it.
If nobody infringes on the trademark, and you have established usage, then there is no need to "defend" it.
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I couldn't find what you were talking about. I did searches for "Trademark law use of TM symbol", read the "Trademark" page on Wikipedia, and "Trademark law".
Here's what I found:
On www.inta.org:
The symbol (TM) is used by companies to notify the public to a claim of rights in a trademark. A (TM) is usually used in connection with an unregistered trademark and does not have any legal status.
On uspto.gov:
Are there federal regulations governing the use of the designations "TM" or "SM" with trademarks?
No. Use o
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Yeah, but that doesn't mean somebody else can just go arbitrarily trademark the word you've been using and then sue you for continuing to use it. At worst, "DotA" should become a generic term.
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Common law trademarks (TM) only apply in the state your company is in. For federal (and limited international) coverage, you need to apply for a federal trademark.
Federal trademarks are first come first serve, so whoever files first gets it. It doesn't matter who's using the trademark in the market already (unless they've filed).
Valve is probably doing this as a defensive measure, so some scumbag doesn't register it and attempt to extort money from them. It's become a fairly generic term though, I wonder ho
Opposition to trademark registration (Score:2)
Federal trademarks are first come first serve
Even if someone files an opposition claiming prior use sometime in the next thirty days?
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yeah, but they'd have to have a valid reason for opposition.
If the trademark isn't deemed too generic or previously registered, they're screwed even if they've been using the trademark for some time.
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Ok but... (Score:3, Insightful)
What about Half Life? Is this franchise dead or something?
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What about Half Life? Is this franchise dead or something?
I'm afraid the franchise has reached its half-life.
Re:Ok but... (Score:5, Funny)
What about Half Life? Is this franchise dead or something?
I'm afraid the franchise has reached its half-life.
So it's only mostly dead? There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
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At the time that WaroDaBeast posted "I'm afraid the franchise has reached its half-life," any posts made after it would be more than half dead, which is one acceptable criterion for "mostly dead."
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Clearly, the franchise is bricked [slashdot.org].
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Look at me, still posting when there's science to do...
When I read your posts, it makes me glad I'm not you.
Re:Ok but... (Score:5, Informative)
What about Half Life? Is this franchise dead or something?
I doubt it, they are supposedly working on the last Episode, but I'm not shocked that it is taking so long. Remember, whatever happens in the last episode, it sets the stage for the next game. You don't want to kill off people who would be handy later on. The franchise is still very popular, very profitable, and the highest ranking games on Metacritic's website. The rumors of the franchise's death have been greatly exaggerated.
They are talking about making the last episode much scarier, which I think is the right thing to do. I remember the first Half-life literally giving me chill bumps, and making me jump with the head crabs and other assorted critters. The last interview that Gabe gave on it (that I am aware of) was a few months ago: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/03/26/valve-wants-their-next-half-life-to-scare-you/ [mtv.com]
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Which is why I didn't say HL3 or HL4, just "the next game". There is also the potential for a prequel, or a game from a different point of view, like they did with Opposing Force and Blue Shift. Simply staying in the same time and universe, there is huge potential for a game where you don't even see Gordon, as a Combine, or play a citizen that organizes the underground railroad, etc. Personally, I would love to play a game as DOG, with the gravity gun and maybe one or two other "powers", doing combat whi
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Half-life was my original love when it comes to PC games. That I am still able to say after all these years that I truly trust Valve that whatever the next installment and ones after that will be of superb quality and lots of fun, not to mention with awesome new modding potential. Valve and by extension Steam is a bastion of the pc gamer industry, despite its often pointed out flaws (usually said to be DRM and longevity)
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Case in point: Valve games are the only games I buy at full retail before they come out. Everything else, I wait until they go on sale. Partly because I trust their quality, and honestly, partly out of customer loyalty.
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OMG, I'd love playing as a 'citizen' against the Combine in the Half-Life world. IF they did it right,
Personally, I've been waiting anxiously for a MMOFPS set in a post-apocalyptic/urban riot/or zombie world: basically something akin to Fallout 3, but MMORPG and focused on team/squad type tactics, while retaining significant RPG characteristics/customizations that would make each character 'unique' but not necessarily better.
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Exactly! Setup the underground railroad, maybe maps to where you escort scientists to safety, etc. Others where you simply take out communications facilities, etc. Use makeshift weapons, maybe even go undercover as a Combine to sabotage a facility, at the risk of getting caught. They are NOT fully exploiting the potential of the universe.
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That is well put. I agree with your assessment of HL2, which was still very good, and offered something new, but didn't have the same "thrills" that the first had. I still say an in universe/time small game where you play as DOG could be quite humorous and fun. Been thinking about it more: Just the gravity gun in the right hand and a missile launcher in the left. No weapon swapping. And with regular but temporary powerups to make the gravity gun the GOOD one, where you can pickup live people and toss
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You do realise that Valve have got more than 1 studio, right?
It's a seperat studio making Half-life.
dota (Score:1)
Re:dota (Score:5, Insightful)
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*cough* counterstrike *hack*
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You mean like they did with Alien Swarm? Oh wait...
Nah, they’ll just release a (probably Source-based) standalone DoTA game, for free. Free games drive Steam accounts, which drive large numbers of purchases when other games are on sale.
Re:dota (Score:4, Insightful)
As a fairly avid gamer who has played well over 2000 games of dota (TDA gamecount is in the 1200s), and someone who plays dota as his main game, let me be the first to say: DotA is NOT a good game to get in to. While I love it and think its a terrific game, it is extraordinarily difficult to get into. There are over 90 heroes, each of whom possess 4 skills. There are also probably 60 something (guessing off the top of my head) items. In order to be able to play and enjoy the game, you need to know 1) skills for every hero, and 2) item builds for the heroes you play.
I have tried to get my friends to try dota- the ones that used to play have largely quit for HoN or sc2. The only people I can recommend dota to are the ones that a) are skilled strategy game players, b) enjoy playing wc3, and c) are willing to dedicate the roughly 50+ hours necessary to simply UNDERSTAND dota.
Dota is a competitive, balanced, and rewarding game, but it takes a tremendous time investment before one can enjoy it. In my opinion, for beginners, dota will not be truly fun until you are able to understand the other team/players' strategies and counter them. Most low level dota consists of farming up items and then trying to kill things. While this might be fun for a while, this is like playing l4d2 with computers: it's fun, but you're missing out on the most crucial part of the game
Lastly, most dota players are terrible people. They feign ignorance, love to blame others, and can singlehandedly ruin a game. This is something you need to understand - just one player can make an otherwise great game miserable. Especially in low level league play (like TDA or THR) where there are penalties for leaving a game early, having one of these people on your team can make for 45 minutes of hell. Also, most players won't really progress beyond these leagues, so if you're trying to get in to dota, this is what you have to look forward to.
That said, best of luck... It would be great to have new dota players, or a standalone REAL dota game (that exactly mirrors the wc3 variant - my problem with HoN is it's too different).
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As a fairly avid gamer who has played well over 2000 games of dota (TDA gamecount is in the 1200s), and someone who plays dota as his main game, let me be the first to say: DotA is NOT a good game to get in to. While I love it and think its a terrific game, it is extraordinarily difficult to get into. There are over 90 heroes, each of whom possess 4 skills. There are also probably 60 something (guessing off the top of my head) items. In order to be able to play and enjoy the game, you need to know 1) skills for every hero, and 2) item builds for the heroes you play.
Well since it's pretty obvious you don't know anything and you're just a casual player, STFU N00B!!
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Its probably a lot more than that, actually... I just threw out a number. 2 Building shops @ ~12 each, lady/dwarf at 12 each, for 48, special shop for ~60 + 6 recipe shops at average of 10 is probably total of more like 120.
tl;dr, my above number was not well thought out.
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So what's the missing crucial part from l4d2 on the computer?
Business model (Score:5, Insightful)
2 - hire the devs
3 - release standalone Steam version
4 - PROFIT!
Re:Business model (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't surprise me in the least,
Re:Business model (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey it's a sound business model that results in quality polished games. Can't knock them for it. :)
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Re:Business model (Score:5, Insightful)
Except technically speaking, Portal was not a mod. It was based off of a proof-of-concept puzzle game called Narbacular Drop.
Other than that, yep.
I can't see it as anything but good for gaming. Gamers know what gamers want and so far the groundswell approach they use has produced some truly great games.
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No it wasn't. Parent was correct. I downloaded and played Narbacular Drop [wikipedia.org] before it became Portal. It had nothing to do with Valve, Source Engine or Half-Life before the team was hired by Valve.
Re:Business model (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Business model (Score:5, Insightful)
And Steam is their real money maker these days (Score:4, Insightful)
One might notice that they've become extremely lax with regards to development. Source has badly stagnated and as such they aren't really selling any engine licenses. Their own game development proceeds at a snail's pace. However Steam sales are extremely brisk. They are making tons of money on it.
Also Steam is very much a "One platform to rule them all," kind of setup. Steam doesn't play well with others. Their DRM, Steamworks is mandatory for all games on Steam, but also free for anyone to use. In fact retail titles use it now... But if a game is Steamworks then you have to install and run Steam to play the game. This also means you have to allow distribution of your game on Steam, but also that you game probably cannot be distributed on any other download platform. While they don't require that, it is how things go by default. After all, Impulse does not want you to have to download a game through their service, then once it is installing go and install Steam which will ALSO have to run.
Valve really seems to want to push Steam as the one and only way to do games. Everything will be on there, even if you happened to buy it in a store. To that end, pushing Steam to the maximum number of people possible is a real smart idea.
Don't get me wrong, I use Steam and own many games on it, but they do have a bit of the big brother, "We want to control all your media," type stuff going on. If that's your goal, putting out some free products to achieve it is worth while.
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Steam's not quite as big brother as your putting it out to be.. a counter example is Dawn of War 2. Picked it up on the weekend at a LAN Party, bought it directly off steam. However it's technically a Games for Windows Live game, so playing multiplayer i had to actually make a Live account. Invites to join the game went through GfW (well, that was the plan, thanks to GfW sucking so bad we never did get a game going)
Thought it a bit odd that I could open up the Steam interface while having the Games for W
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One might notice that they've become extremely lax with regards to development. Source has badly stagnated and as such they aren't really selling any engine licenses. Their own game development proceeds at a snail's pace. However Steam sales are extremely brisk. They are making tons of money on it.
As far as I can tell, selling Source licenses hasn't ever been a main focus for Valve. And as far as advancing the engine itself: most of the bells and whistles would be lost on (or even detract from) their most p
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I don't think you're correct about steamworks being required. I currently play SC2 through steam. I didn't really care too much about steamfriends and stuff until i had to make a LIVE account for DOW2, a BattleNet account for SC2, an EA account for Spore & B:BC2, a Relic Online account for Company of Heroes.
I'm also sure that if you have a game on steam, you can still distribute it via any other means. For example World of Goo and most big console FPS titles.. like Modern Warfare and Battlefield seri
I think people are confused (Score:2)
And misunderstood what I wrote. You can have games on Steam and on other things. However, if you use Steamworks as your DRM, which is something Valve is pushing for retail games, then your game MUST use Steam. Steamworks cannot separate from Steam. So whereas something like Impulse::Reactor works without Impulse, Steamworks doesn't work without Steam. That means if you have a Steamworks game, like Supreme Commander 2 or Just Cause 2 or Fallout New Vegas they are available ONLY retail and Steam, not on other
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I do not understand how they cannot make TWO versions of the game. Any game that is on PC and Console is already divided into two versions, like i said before. Just because you sell a copy of your game with steamworks, doesn't mean you cannot sell a version without it.
For example, you can play SupCom2 via steam.. OR you can play it on your Xbox360. That was a decision that they made. If they wanted a second PC version minus steamworks, they could have done it.
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I don't think it's invasive as that. Bohemia Interactive have their games on Steam, but also sell them at retail and via their own digital distribution platform (Sprocket). They're also on Direct2Drive and other things. Only the Steam version of the game requires Steam; the others have absolutely no dependency on it whatsoever. Additionally from what I've read, the beta patches and all mods etc. work fine with the Steam version, and you don't even need to have Steam running in order to play it.
I think Eagle
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1 - choose a popular mod to an existing game. 2 - hire the devs 3 - release standalone Steam version 4 - PROFIT!
5 - ???
Well, that step has to be in there somewhere.
Summary is wrong, as usual (Score:5, Informative)
Icefrog is NOT the original developer. I don't know where that nonsense keeps coming from.
The original developer is named Eul, and he made it way back before The Frozen Throne came out. He then stopped supporting it. Guinsoo then made DotA Allstars. Icefrog took that over at version 6, and is the current maintainer.
I don't know how you go from "second maintainer of a remake" to "original author", but it's amazing how fast that spread around the Internet.
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I would like to add that genre is not "DOTA", it is "AoS".
The original map that created these types of custom games was called "Aeon of Strife". It is a starcraft custom map.
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Re:Summary is wrong, as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
I played it all the way from the original Eul version, and those weren't buggy or newbie hostile at all. It got a lot more hostile to newbies in remakes as the complexity shot through the roof.
There's really no problem with him maintaining it, he's done a good job. There is a problem with claiming they're in the moral right to trademark it because the original author is working there, because that's a bald faced lie.
Correct information - mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
The original DotA for WC3:RoC was very polished and MUCH less complicated.
The thing I liked about it was that it didn't have the "avalanche" effect that all-stars did. The characters could only level to 10, and the items were not ludicrously powerful - so there was no point at which certain heroes became absurdly powerful. I always felt allstars devolved into item farming.
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I worked on one of the versions on TFT, around the time All Stars popped up. At the time, DotA was really in its infancy and I felt like we were all just trying to figure out ways to make it better. The core gameplay was brilliant, but there were numerous balance issues that we were trying to address (as well as working to make the heroes, abilities, and items more exciting).
What All Stars did was make DotA really, really popular by polishing everything and innovating constantly. When it came out, it too
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Been getting into LoL recently, and while I agree it's very polished (I really like the character designs and the free-to-play model is a good one), the one area that Valve could improve on is making it more newbie-friendly. While LoL may be more newbie-friendly than DoTA, that's like saying Venus is less hot than the sun. It's still not a very hospitable place. It's basically a full-time job to get up to speed with all the acronyms, jargon, and conventions. You join your first match of LoL and your teammat
LoL, HoN, and DotA (Score:3, Interesting)
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Icefrog did all the hardest work, by far. He brought the hero count up to absurd numbers and did amazing amounts of polish and balance work as well as technical work to keep the file size reasonable. What he has pulled off is phenomenal.
League of Legends, etc. etc. FLOOD THE MARKET (Score:1, Insightful)
Uh, I enjoyed DOTA some, and it was definitely a pretty fresh idea. I love that Valve hires developers in the mod scene that do good things (counter strike, team fortress, portal, I could go on).
However, League of Legends is just getting into season 1, becoming IMO the pretty ideal DOTA game. I play it alot and it has improved greatly on the gameplay. And they just keep adding characters!
On TOP of that, there was Demigod, which was a more full 3d DOTA but it mostly flopped, and furthermore there is Heroes o
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They're probably thinking the for an investment equivalent to a small advertising campaign they build a fresh team that learns to work together, and create a product that keeps them in the public eye while the bull that is Blizzard rampages through the China shop.
Episode 3 (Score:1, Offtopic)
We just wanna play episode 3
Revenge of the Shit? NOOOOOOO!
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Name (Score:4, Informative)
It's Jon St. John [wikipedia.org], not John St. John.
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Yep, and it's that Jon St. John. Which makes me think this won't actually be a "Defense of the Ancients" game, but that it's the new Duke Nukem installment. It even starts with a "D", I can't be wrong!
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I'm still stuck with yesterday's story (Score:4, Funny)
I read "Valve Trademarks 'HOPA'"
Y
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HOt Piece of Ass.
Vi-sitter-i-ventrilo-dept (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTJncWndUB8 [youtube.com]
If anyone was wondering.
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For those who don't know, the above post is referring to this [youtube.com].
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Vi sitter här i venten och spelar lite DotA å pushar på å smeker, med motståndet vi leker. -Basshunter
(Oh no you started an infinite loop!)
Valve should get its priorities straight... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Seriously, it has been long enough now.
After that, you can go back to business as usual and do as many games and mods and maps (and whatnot) as you like and I – as a long time linux user – can finally start caring!
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Phoronix has been saying stuff like that for years, and yet it hasn't materialized yet.
The original logic was that, because Valve ported their shared libraries to Linux, this CLEARLY meant that there was going to be a Linux client. Except that dedicated server binaries use said libraries.
Now, they're saying because some X11 (GTK?) code exists to draw the main Steam window, Valve must be working on a client. And yet, it doesn't. As far as we know, this was originally how Valve was designing the Mac OSX ve
Could be the game my friends and I wanted. (Score:1)
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Are you seriously suggesting that there can be a DotA-like game put out that won't inspire massive flamewars?
League of Legends anyone? (Score:1)
How was this even found? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know this is only slightly on topic- but how was this registration found? Did they have to pay money to search the system?
What if I wanted to just go searching for a term? Or for all terms registered by a company? What stops people from doing that?
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USPTO has a search engine, which if you know enough about how they categorize everything, you can find a lot of stuff in there. They even do neat things like categorize the shapes of logos (eg 26.19.01 - Spheres (geometric)).
Mostly, though, the engine is a flaming pile of shit, driven largely by sessions that make it next to impossible to figure out how to link to results. Even if you find your specific trademark, the search results page link to the trademark document uses your session ID. In fact, you c
This could have potential! (Score:1)