Besieged Disney CCG maker manufacturers swimsuit towards it ‘the authorized equal of alchemy’ because it performs the hotshot lawyer card
On: July 14, 2023
Ravensburger, the game firm being sued over accusations of “stealing and copying” a game from rival Higher Deck so as to repackage it as Disney’s much-hyped upcoming collectible card game Disney Lorcana, is bringing out the large weapons.
On the one hand, Ravensburger has put ahead a movement to the US District Courtroom for the Southern District of California rubbishing Higher Deck’s lawsuit outright, calling it “the authorized equal of alchemy” and asking the court docket to dismiss the case out of hand.
On the opposite—you already know, simply in case that does not work—it is reminded everybody of simply the form of authorized recommendation it has in its nook. In a press release to ComicBook.com that accompanied the court docket submitting, Brian Lewis—former basic counsel for Wizards of the Coast who helped flip Magic: The Gathering into a world phenomenon again within the ’90s—stated that Higher Deck’s case “seems to be extra of a PR stunt than a real authorized dispute,” including that he hoped the case could be “dismissed outright” earlier than anybody needed to set foot in a courtroom.
Should you do not fairly keep in mind, Higher Deck is accusing its former contract employee Ryan Miller of taking concepts from a game he labored on on the firm over to his job at Ravensburger, porting them wholesale into Lorcana and letting that game hit the market first. Much more dramatically, Higher Deck says Ravensburger “aided and inspired” him, within the hopes of benefiting from the “stolen mental property”. It desires monetary compensation and—maybe extra scary for Ravensburger and Disney—an injunction on Lorcana’s August launch date.
You will not be shocked to be taught that Ravensburger is not fairly on board with that description of occasions. In its movement for dismissal, the corporate will get downright excoriating about Higher Deck’s motives, calling the case “a strained and clumsy effort to decelerate a competitor”.
“Higher Deck’s laundry-list of claims fails as a matter of legislation, even underneath probably the most fundamental stage of scrutiny,” reads Ravensburger’s movement, “the fiduciary responsibility declare fails as a result of Mr. Miller just isn’t and by no means was a fiduciary to Higher Deck,” which means in essence that Miller was solely ever an unbiased contractor who by no means agreed to not work with Higher Deck’s rivals, making the corporate’s “try to make use of this declare, and others, to fabricate a non-compete clause where none exists is the authorized equal of alchemy”.
I may go on, however you get the thought. Ravensburger reckons all of Higher Deck’s claims—fiduciary, fraud, and in any other case—fail to fulfill the requirements essential to advantage consideration by the court docket. It is all only a enterprise manoeuvre to hamper a rival, alleges the Lorcana maker. In spite of everything, “Higher Deck was conscious of Mr. Miller’s employment with Ravensburger and work on Lorcana when the game was introduced … regardless of that consciousness, Higher Deck did nothing. Higher Deck can’t now lament that it was broken by its personal inaction”.
Blistering stuff! However Ravensburger would say that, would not it? It is not precisely out of the extraordinary for an organization focused by a court docket case to attempt to get the case dismissed earlier than it may well begin doing monetary and reputational harm. Simply because Ravensburger’s movement is so strident (and deploys such potent zingers) does not imply the court docket will let it have its personal method.
Plus, I think about Higher Deck will summon its personal hotshot attorneys to reply Ravensburger’s claims in some unspecified time in the future. The corporate hasn’t responded but—the movement to dismiss was solely printed yesterday—however I’ve reached out to it for remark and I am going to update this piece if I hear again.
