1. As far as I know Bethesda is still working on it :/ They own the trademark
2. The difference between the two game development processes is that when bethesda got it all the previous fallouts released were from above third person shooters. You cannot, imo, say that they outclassed Bethesda, because most of the stuff they used in the game was already in the previous fallout and they just polished it a little bit. They did not invent a whole lot of new stuff, they expanded on a already a good game. Games are not movies, fortunately, sequels usually tend to be better in video games because they can take all the good stuff from the previous title, get rid of the stuff that was not popular and just add some new stuff and hope people will like it. Of course during this process they listen to the community as well so they knew what the fans wanted to see. Bethesda developed a fps rpg in a way that has not really been tried before and the risk had payed off. Obsidian has been in a lot less pressure during the development process, because they could rely on the fact that fallout would probably be successful because of all of the support from fallout 3. Obsidian didnt outclass bethesda, the couldnt have gone wrong with the game unless they were absolutely dumb and ignored the community. Obsidian, unlike Bethesda, were swimming in safe waters while developing fallout.
I like both the games so yeah. I just want people to look on things objectivly.