Update:

ValveTime now reports that the trademark has been removed and was likely a hoax.

ValveTime posted the following update:

"We can now confirm that the "Half-Life 3" trademark has been removed from the Trademarks and Design Registration Office of the European Union (OHIM) website. The entrant appears to have disappeared entirely after only being listed on the website database for little over a week, allowing us to identify that the trademark's listing was more than likely a hoax intended to generate fake buzz for a game which is unlikely to appear for several years. Returning readers may remember when we had discussed how the "Half-Life 3" listing was previously never officially checked or authenticated before its removal.

On October 2nd 2013, a brand new trademark filing appeared on the same site, this time for Portal 3", which is listed under the trademark number of "012190286". While this new filing should almost definitely be taken with a rather large pinch of salt, we can confirm that the "Portal 3" listing appears to have been appropriately examined by OHIM, unlike the previously listed "Half-Life 3" trademark. Thanks to the recent sneak peak into Valve's Jira account, we can confirm that there is currently no "Portal 3" development team within the company, highlighting that this brand new listing is also very likely a hoax of some kind, regardless of whether or not it has been officially examined. We'll keep you posted if and when we learn more."

Valve has declined to comment.Original story follows:

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Valve has filed for a trademark on Half-Life 3 in Europe, perhaps indicating the developer finally plans to move forward with the first-person shooter series it made its name on.The trademark was filed for on September 29 and lists Valve as its owner. It's a standard trademark filing, offering little more than the name, owner, and classification, which, as you'd expect, describes it as "video game software."Half-Life was last seen in 2007 in the form of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. It was one of three new games included in The Orange Box alongside Portal and Team Fortress 2. Since that time, Valve has been busy, developing or contributing to the release of Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, Alien Swarm, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Dota 2. There's also the matter of Steam, and the massive steps forward it's taken, seen most recently in the form of SteamOS Steam Machine , and the Steam controller Countless Half-Life rumors have surfaced over the past half decade, with little or no official word to be had from Valve, which had actually set out to reduce the time in between Half-Life releases by turning to an episodic format following Half-Life 2. Last year, there was talk of an open-world Half-Life game . More recently, internal documents from Valve suggested that Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 might both be in the works A trademark filing alone guarantees nothing, but after such a long drought, this does at least give Half-Life fans reason to feel optimistic.Thanks, NeoGAF

Chris Pereira is a freelance writer who can't believe it's been six years since he last played a new Half-Life game (and that he's spent most of that time playing Team Fortress 2). Check out what he's saying on Twitter and follow him on IGN