Blizzard secures Overwatch brand name

Blizzard appears to have registered the Overwatch brand name with the United States Patent and Trademark Office earlier this month. The brand name is reserved for a game and related items such as mice, keyboards and headsets.

Website Player Attack discovered that Blizzard filed the Overwatch brand name with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on April 8. The brand name is intended for a game that can be downloaded or sold on disc and for derivative products such as headsets, mice and keyboards. Blizzard has not yet announced a game under the brand name and the registration with the USPTO says little. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Blizzard has a game under the title Overwatch in production.

The name suggests that it is an independent game and not an extension for existing games such as World of Warcraft, StarCraft II or Diablo III. It is also unlikely that the title will be used for the new mmog that Blizzard is in production, known as Titan until now. The studio could use the name for a new and unannounced small-scale project. It has gained experience with this in recent years. Both Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm were made with a team of less than 20 employees.

There have been indications before that Blizzard has at least one unannounced game in production. For example, Jay Wilson, head of the Diablo III development team, announced in early 2013 that he was moving to another position within Blizzard that has nothing to do with Diablo. What Wilson is working on is unknown. Blizzard also announced in May 2013 that it had hired Mike Booth, until then head of the team responsible for Left 4 Dead at Turtle Rock Studios. Booth heads a small team within Blizzard working on an unannounced game.