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Last week, Blizzard officially announced the first seven teams for the Overwatch League esports tournament. At the same time, the league's logo was revealed, which appears to have caught the attention of Major League Baseball (MLB), which could lead to some legal trouble. Right now, MLB is said to be gearing up to oppose Blizzard's trademark for the logo on the grounds that it is too similar to the MLB logo.
The experts over at law firm Morrison/Lee explained that Blizzard registered its logo on the 28th of March, at which point third parties were given the opportunity to oppose it. At the time, MLB filed for a 90 day extension, giving it more time to file an opposition, though the deadline runs out on the 26th of July.
You can see both logos side by side above. There are some similarities between the two and it seems that MLB may be worried about a perceived connection between it and the Overwatch League. There is some ground for that too, as the owner of the New York Mets baseball team also owns a team on the Overwatch League. Blizzard has also been active in trying to get already established sports team owners invested into the Overwatch League.
It is a tricky case and if MLB does end up successfully opposing the current Overwatch League logo, then Blizzard will need to make some adjustments.
KitGuru Says: MLB still has until the 26th of July to oppose, so we won't know what is happening for sure until then. Do you guys think the Overwatch League and MLB logos might be too similar?
What about MLG and NBA?
https://www.google.com.br/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2c/Major_League_Gaming_%2528logo%2529.svg/1280px-Major_League_Gaming_%2528logo%2529.svg.png&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Major_League_Gaming_(logo).svg&h=504&w=1280&tbnid=LZLHf8A-oq-JfM:&tbnh=59&tbnw=151&usg=___0uLCHL43fH0rQ2aJH46yoGxqSA=&vet=10ahUKEwjplJSvmZXVAhUEI5AKHeu8D3AQ_B0IkwEwDg..i&docid=aLAd_li0tgaa_M&itg=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjplJSvmZXVAhUEI5AKHeu8D3AQ_B0IkwEwDg
its not the same dont see any problems with the logo
If you can get legal issues for that, then I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Both characters on each logo have pointy noses, i see the similarity! p.s please make Tracers butt larger :p
maybe they need to also sue France 😛
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne#/media/File:Gov_fr.png
How are these even remotely close to each other? On one you got a guy holding a baseball bat and ready to swing at the baseball. On the other you got a toon out stretched holding a gun ready to blow someones head off. The only thing that looks even remotely close is the split colors on the two logo’s. These can not be confused and I see no merit to the law suite. If the MLB wins this case it is a pretty sad sad day on this planet we call earth.
Edited: Oh yea both have the word League on the logo’s yep now I’m confused for sure…lmao
They look nothing alike
They are similar?…..where ? O.o
As designer i can tell you, is the same idea.
As a creative director in a design agency, yes there are similarities between the two, obvious shape and diagonal negative space silhouette, also the word league, but come on, totally different subject areas, if one was another baseball league then I could see an issue, but it’s not it’s a gaming league with no common interest that looks different enough to not be an issue, there is no cause for concern over IP here.