WotLK trademarked by Blizzard

And it looks like the final nail has been hammered in to support the "Wrath of the Lich King" speculation-- as MMO Champion points out, Blizzard Entertainment has registered "Wrath of the Lich King" as a trademark (you've got to do a search for it on the USPTO's website, as they don't allow links to searches), all but confirming that the next expansion will take us to Arthas' domain in Northrend.

Now, just to play devil's advocate, there is still a chance that Blizzard did this as a smokescreen, and that the expansion has nothing to do with the Lich King. But the trademark was filed on July 28th, which by my estimation puts it a few days ahead of the speculation-- that's a pretty strong indication that while Blizzard waited until the last minute to do it (knowing BlizzCon was only a week or so away), they didn't wait long enough to keep us from leaking it out.

The other note is that the patent trademark (note to self: don't piss off the lawyers!) covers not only computer games, but also "comic books," "trading cards," "coloring books," and "greeting cards," among a number of other types of items. I don't know if I ever saw any Burning Crusade greeting cards, but maybe Blizzard expects their little WoW empire to get even bigger in the future.

So: Friday. BlizzCon. Wrath of the Lich King. Be there!

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!