Novalogic, the long time developers and publishers of games in the Delta Force military shooter franchise, has filed a lawsuit against Activision, claiming that the company has violated both its Delta Force trademark and its logo in the recent first person shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Courthouse News has posted up a PDF file of the full lawsuit.
Novalogic released the first game in the Delta Force shooter series in 1998 and also registered both the trademark "Delta Force" along with a logo for the franchise that same year. The company has released a number of games in the series since that time, with the last being Delta Force: Xtreme 2 in 2009. The company has been developing a new game in the series, Delta Force: Angel Falls, for the past several years.
In its lawsuit, Novalogic says that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 contains a number of missions that have been designated as "Delta Force" missions. In addition, the game uses a logo that has some similarities to Novalogic"s trademarked Delta Force logo. The lawsuit states:
Despite Activision"s irrefutable knowledge of Novalogic"s superior trademark rights, Activision created knockoff marks that are nearly identical [to] NovaLogic"s design and word marks. Activision then shamelessly inserted these infringing marks throughout its competing first person military adventure video games.
Novalogic also believes that a previous game in the Call of Duty series, Black Ops, violated Novalogic"s trademarks due to one of the game"s DLC packs being titled Escalation. Novalogic released a military shooter expansion pack, Join Operations: Escalation, in 2004.
Novalogic claims that it sent a cease and desist letter to Activision in December 2011 which was refused by the company. Novalogic claims it has lost "millions" of dollars as a result of the alleged trademark infringement. Activision has yet to comment on this lawsuit.
Image via Novalogic