Almost after a year of being filed, a judge has formally ruled that Activision did not infringe on any trademark with their own Delta Force logo featured in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
Developer NovaLogic was seeking damages over Activision's Delta Force logo, arguing that it bore a striking similarity to the one featured in NovaLogic's own titular Delta Force series.
According to Judge Walter's ruling, however, both the logo as well as the phrase itself, "Delta Force," have a history of "an established and well-known prior meaning and connotation ... that is unrelated to plaintiff and that meaning and connotation predate plaintiff's use of the registered trademarks, it is highly unlikely that consumers will be misled."
Fair enough as far as the phrasing goes, but the logos' resemblance to each other is still uncanny. According to NovaLogic's original filing, "The infringing mark's lightning rod is horizontal rather than vertical and a portion of the delta sign is set behind the dagger blade rather than being superimposed...Despite Activision's irrefutable knowledge of NovaLogic's superior trademark rights, Activision created knockoff marks that are identical [to] NovaLogic's design and word marks. Activision then shamelessly inserted these infringing marks throughout its competing first person military adventure video games."
Here's the odd thing - technically speaking, there is no unit operating within the U.S. Army known as Delta Force. There is a branch of the Army's Special operations known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta ('1st SF-ODD'), which is popularly known as the clandestine group, but the U.S. Army officially denies that any unit called Delta Force exists.
However, do a quick Google search on trying to find the exact insignia or patch for that group, and you're given a barrage of images that are more or less what is presented in both Activision and NovaLogic's games. Despite holding a trademark on it, who's really ripping off who? You can take a look at the two logos here.
