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They legally have no right to do this. If anything, OUR Warzone has the right to countersue, if the owner here felt like he wanted to since this site used the name first.

@emporer then the argument comes up about why not the other warzone games that other devs made before this game was named it

If anything, OUR Warzone has the right to countersue, if the owner here felt like he wanted to since this site used the name first.

They are. That [the owner here feeling like he wanted to sue since this site used the name first] is what set the lawsuit off- Warzone.com, LLC, mailed Activision and asked for 0.25% profits, after Activision filed to trademark "Warzone" for itself. The negotiations over that got nowhere and Activision filed a lawsuit to get the court to tell Warzone.com, LLC, to fizz off. In response, Warzone.com, LLC, is fighting to get the court to prevent Activision from trademarking "Warzone" and to make Activision stop using "Warzone" and pay them for the damage to Warzone.com, LLC, that occurred as a result of Call of Duty: Warzone being a vastly more popular game using the name "Warzone" than Warzone.com, LLC's own Warzone brands.

They're probably back in settlement negotiations so we'll probably find out soon enough how this all pans out. I doubt either party is going to go all the way on this. The potential risks + legal fees easily dwarf either party's upside in pursuing the case to its conclusion.

EDIT: clarified some grammatical ambiguity that might've misled Tac(ky)tical into thinking the countersuit referred to the cease-and-desist

Edited 7/18/2021 07:49:20

it is pretty obvious ppl confuse the two games when someone joins the *official* Warzone discord and post links to their "Warzone" games (which are rly just clips of them 360 no-scoping like MLG pro).

it is also annoying when i look up warzone on twitch or youtube and ALL I FIND is call of duty. use to be, i could watch old warzone streams on youtube and relive some good days.

if this isnt proof that ppl are/can and will confuse the two games, dont know what is.

@kynte for someone who has spent an exuberant amount of time on this website, you are not very helpful. i wonder where you find these numbers and information

WAIT?!?!?!?

Activision is suing us?

Is this about them clearly plagiarizing Warzone?

its technically a counter sue because warzone sent a "cease and desist" letter. that being said its very common for this big companies to try to take on small markets because the small markets dont have the funds to wage a true legal battle

@kynte [sic] for someone who has spent an exuberant [sic] amount of time on this website, you are not very helpful. i wonder where you find these numbers and information

The only number in my post was the 0.25% of CoD:WZ profits, which comes from Fizzer via a Washington Post puff piece (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/06/04/warzone-name-lawsuit/):

Ficker’s attorney, Derek A. Newman, later sent a cease-and-desist letter to Activision, and the two parties began trying to settle the case. Ficker said his ask was 0.25% of Call of Duty Warzone’s profits. While Activision has not released any revenue figures specifically around “Warzone,” which monetizes by selling in-game currency that can be used on cosmetics and a seasonal battle pass, the company announced in May that it had been played by 100 million people. Activision countered with an offer of $10,000, according to Ficker, which he rejected.

if this isnt proof that ppl are/can and will confuse the two games, dont know what is.

You're right. You quite obviously don't know what is and isn't proof of consumer confusion.

its technically a counter sue [sic] because warzone sent a "cease and desist" letter.

No, it's a countersuit because Warzone responded to Activision's claim by filing a counterclaim alleging trademark infringement via reverse consumer confusion, on June 8, 2021. So Activision is suing Warzone.com, LLC, but Warzone.com, LLC, is also suing Activision. There is nothing surprising about that and if Warzone weren't countersuing Activision, that would raise questions.

Ample information about this case is available on PACER and within this thread. If you are unfamiliar with using PACER, I can happily retrieve the documents and send them to you over Discord (l4vr0v#2623). I suggest consulting some of that before making further incorrect inferences.

Edited 7/18/2021 07:48:01

@Z have u been under a rock for the last 3 months lol.

sure nobody is going to buy a skin on call of duty thinking it applies here, and no one is going to buy membership here thinking it will apply to call of duty.

still, fizzer's main source of advertising is the playerbase, which is being drowned out.

use to be, if you look up warlight or warzone memes, or even media on youtube, it was easy to find. now? goodluck!! there are players like SNBX, Aura Guardian, Mythic, whom made dozens on dozens of videos. if you don't have them subscribed or saved, you will never find these videos looking up "warzone." literally, i have tried :D

seems warzone.com is a niche game that is being drowned out by a much larger company that is trying to get copyrights to a name that has been in use for several years. call it how you see it

its gotten to the point where call of duty players will join our official discord and post their twitch accounts to gain attention, and that is definitely some confusion there

Tac(ky)tical: check out Ironhawk v. Dropbox, an ongoing reverse consumer confusion case that went through the same district court as this one- https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/19-56347/19-56347-2021-07-06.html. It should give you some idea of what the law actually cares about. Or look up "Sleekcraft factors."

Consumers confusing a Discord server or Twitch category associated with Warzone.com for one associated with Activision's Call of Duty: Warzone doesn't suggest that they're confusing the products, only the venues associated with them. If you're looking to prove actual confusion (which isn't needed for a trademark infringement case, and is indeed not easy to prove), you need to show that consumers are looking at Warzone.com's products and thinking they have something to do with Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty: Warzone brand, or that consumers are looking at Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty: Warzone-branded products and believing they have something to do with Warzone.com, LLC.

It's quite conceivable that someone could mix up Discord servers for two different products without believing they are actually related in some way. They just believe that the Discord server itself is related to one of the products when it's instead related to the other.

Either way, I think you should look at the Sleekcraft factors (and specifically, Ironhawk's claims based on those factors) to get a better grasp of what "trademark infringement" via reverse consumer confusion entails. The stuff you're pointing to- the arguments for actual confusion- are some of the weakest parts of Warzone.com, LLC's case imo. Conversely, one of the arguments that Activision Blizzard should have no trouble selling to a jury is that absolutely no one is going to look at Warzone and believe it was made by a 70 billion dollar company or look at Call of Duty: Warzone and think Fizzer had anything to do with it.

I agree that the success of Call of Duty: Warzone has put Warzone.com, LLC, in a tough position after they chose to build their whole company brand around the word "warzone" in spite of considerable warnings and pushback from the players. (There's a reason that name change got bundled into the Unity update/codebase migration after seemingly getting stalled when it was first attempted. It's because "warzone" was simply not a good strategy, and the choice to go for that name seems to have come from an outdated domain-name-is-everything mode of thought. If you're about to blow $60,000 on a domain name for a brand/product that isn't already making tremendous revenue, just wire that money to a Nigerian prince. At least you'll have more fun throwing it away that way. Look at how Discord didn't bother getting discord.com until they'd already proven their product with discordapp.com. When you want pizza, you go to Dominos, not pizza.com.)

Competition sucks to be on the losing side of. But keep in mind that intellectual property law is only meant to protect you against unfair competition. If "my product lost a lot of money to the competition" were good enough to win a case, BlackBerry would have made a killing off of Apple. You have to actually win the case before the damages matter.

Edited 7/20/2021 07:49:13

im not a lawyer and dont wish to pretend to be, but it seems to me there is only competition because of the name Activision chose to use. a name that had already been IN USE for several years. now i know fizzer did not have trademark, but there are laws here in america to protect intellectual property even without trademark. i hope fizzer earns what is his, and warzone, warlight, idc,

F*** ACTIVISION lol.

a name that had already been IN USE for several years

It's a(n admittedly uncommon) dictionary word[1] already used by over a dozen games well before Warzone.com, LLC, came along. Are you as upset about Halo: Infinite?

When Fizzer purchased Warzone.com, he said:

Warzone is much easier to recognize since it's an actual English word.

Only now, with a cash grab on the line, does he argue that it's not.

now i know fizzer did not have trademark

He doesn't have a registered trademark but whether or not (and to what extent) he has a common law trademark is in dispute in this case.

but there are laws here in america to protect intellectual property even without trademark

Yes, that's the common law trademark I described above.

We'll see what happens; it's a live case.

Just try to actually look things up or talk to someone with expertise before jumping to conclusions, is really all I'm trying to say. I honestly can't tell if you're even typing your comments sober.

Also if you're willing to bet money on the outcome of the case, hit me up on Discord or via Warzone DMs.

1: It's a recognized alternate spelling of "war zone" that's been in use at least as far back as 1893 - https://www.google.com/search?q=%22warzone%22&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1800,cd_max:1899&lr=lang_en&dpr=1&tbm=bks

Edited 10/4/2021 03:04:37

Have u seen the new news article talking about an activison female employee committing sudoku and lots of charges of sexual harassment and inequality.

Activisons getting attacked from all angles atm

wow just read some of the allegations and.. just wow.

Here's the link: https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-blizzard-lawsuit-alleges-discrimination-sexual-harassment-and-frat-boy-culture/

Unsurprising tbh. Not only do game studios have notoriety for how they treat their employees but I know a few people who work or worked at Blizzard (all male) and it sounds like the managers there get away with some abuse and mistreatment of those below them.

Maybe this is good for Warzone since it might (purely speculating) reduce Activision's appetite for further legal risk and make them more willing to settle this case at a higher amount.

fizzer - 1
frat boys at Activision/Blizzard - 0