 Valve adopted the word " Dota " , derived from the original mod 's acronym , as the name for its newly acquired franchise . Producer Erik Johnson argued that the word referred to a concept , and was not an acronym . Shortly after the announcement of Dota 2 , Valve filed a trademark claim to the Dota name . At Gamescom 2011 , company head Gabe Newell explained that the trademark was needed to develop a sequel with the already @-@ identifiable brand . Holding the Dota name to be a community asset , Feak and Mescon filed an opposing trademark for " DOTA " on behalf of DotA @-@ Allstars , LLC ( then a subsidiary of Riot Games ) in August 2010 . Rob Pardo , the executive vice president of Blizzard Entertainment , similarly stated that the DotA name belonged to the mod 's community . Blizzard acquired DotA @-@ Allstars , LLC from Riot Games and filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011 , citing Blizzard 's ownership of both the Warcraft III World Editor and DotA @-@ Allstars , LLC as proper claims to the franchise . The dispute was settled in May 2012 : Valve retained commercial franchising rights to the " Dota " brand , but non @-@ commercial use of the name by third @-@ parties was allowed . 
