In a move that could rival Valve's recent spate of announcements for its ability to excite the gaming populace, the Steam developer has gone and done it: it's trademarked Half Life 3.
Of course with a headline like that, we can expect most of the comments to this piece to be some variation on “Half Life 3 confirmed,” and of course, yes, Valve is acknowledging the game could one day exist, but let's not pretend that this means Valve is almost near the end of producing the game. I'd imagine a trademark filing is likely to come well before any scheduled development takes place.
Hopefully the final game can live up to everyone's expectations. Source: Iraccoto
The filing was made with the Office of Harmonization on 29th September and was found by NeoGAF forum user, Shinobi602 (who has an awesome Dennis Nedry avatar). It clearly lists Valve as the registrar of the trademark and clearly states that that trademark is for a potential video game termed Half Life 3. Beyond that though, this doesn't tell us much.
KitGuru Says: This does at least represent an acknowledgement from Valve that Half Life 3 is a thing. We've heard nothing from the company for years, about what could be its most anticipated title from its most celebrated game series. As popular as Portal is, Half Life is the classic that everyone remembers and wants to see finished – even if the wait has somewhat dampened that enthusiasm.