TL;DR: By early October, we'll have a real legal confrontation and a much better idea of who's winning (if the case doesn't get settled out-of-court before then).
Document update: Activision has filed their reply to Warzone.com's response to Activision's motion to dismiss the counterclaim.
Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sBLKdxnNBIbfHULDUf-xEy2iUZvh_ACG/view?usp=sharingGist: Activision doubles down on the
Rogers test, arguing (off of the First Amendment) that, since
Call of Duty: Warzone has above-zero artistic relevance and is not explicitly misleading, the court must dismiss Warzone.com's counterclaim as a matter of law.
Next event: On October 1, 2021, at 1:30 PM Pacific Time, the California Central District Court will have a hearing on this Motion
Significance: There's two cases here: Activision suing Warzone.com (to get the "warzone" trademark and to block any claims of trademark infringement by Warzone.com) and Warzone.com suing Activision (over alleged trademark infringement by
Call of Duty: Warzone). If the motion to dismiss passes,
Activision v. Warzone.com continues but
Warzone.com v. Activision ends. The court would effectively be ruling that
Call of Duty: Warzone does
not, as a matter of law, infringe on the alleged common law "warzone" word mark owned by Warzone.com.
I recommend skimming it. It has some fun-to-read excerpts and Activision's lawyers have only slightly toned down their level of spiciness. If you are interested in further discussion, hop on to the #activision-vs-wz channel on the Discord.