Well, we knew that Half-Life 3 was going to come out eventually. It really is a case of not if but when it gets officially announced and released. Based on a recently discovered European trademark application, it looks like we could be seeing some of Half-Life 3 inside the next five years.

The trademark application was filed with Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office of the European Union on September 29th. The application covers video games and the “provision of computer and video games and computer and video game programmes from a computer database or via the Internet.” In other words, the trademark is for a game and its digital distribution.

I tried researching how long Valve had to show use of the Half-Life 3 trademark in order to hold the trademark and keep it valid. There are a lot of different numbers floating around. Wikipedia suggested that the Community Trade Mark that Valve filed under is valid for ten years. Reddit user faderprime says that Valve has five years to use their HL3 trademark. Meanwhile, my own reading of Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office guidelines suggest that the application process has a six month turn-around which may require evidence of use for approval without opening the trademark up to a challenge.

In any case, the evidence of use isn’t necessarily the release of a game but likely includes an official announcement or unveiling game footage. However, trademark and copyright law is very complex. That’s why I’ve read a bunch of different interpretations of the laws when it comes to analyzing this application.

But, yeah, long story short: Half-Life 3 confirmed. Well, it’s confirmed that it exists. I don’t think that this confirms that we’re getting it any time soon.

Sources: NeoGAF, Reddit, Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office of the European Union