It was only a week ago that fans of the Half-Life series were excited to learn that Half-Life 3 could possibly be in development due to a filed patent. Unfortunately, that patent has recently been removed. It’s not really surprising given the fact that the patent was only filed in Europe and never filed with the United States Patent Office. That same patent was also not directly filed by Valve themselves. Instead, the patent was filed by Casalonga & Associates, a patent and trademark firm. The patent is merely owned by Valve. It was also a possibility that the patent was only filed on Valve‘s behalf in order to protect their franchise from being stolen, a fairly common practice.
There are no longer any traces of the Half-Life 3 patent on the European Union’s Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, which leads some to believe that this was all a hoax in the first place.
There really is no reason why Valve shouldn’t be working on making Half-Life 3 or at least even considering it. It’s very clear that the fans are eagerly anticipating a follow up to Half-Life 2. Plus, is there a better game to market with their Steam Machine?
Source: Ubergizmo
