[kibwen]

  > Defense of the Ancients 2 (1,262,612 daily players)

Curiously, "Dota 2" is not actually an abbreviation for "Defense of the Ancients 2", the full name of the game is just "Dota 2". Valve did this because they weren't capable of trademarking the term "Defense of the Ancients", whereas they were eventually able to procure the commercial trademark for "Dota" (which caused a stir in the greater community at the time, which had been using the initialism in a general capacity for ages).

[taurath]

I still don't see exactly how they were able to "own" the trademark. They didn't create the mod or the game, they just hired the 3rd developer who was mostly doing balance improvements during his tenure. There was a whole community around DotA that suddenly had to migrate to "official" channels.