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Ravensburger, writer of the highly-anticipated new Disney Lorcana buying and selling card recreation, has issued a proper response to a lawsuit by competitor Higher Deck. In it, the sport and toy producer calls Higher Deck’s lawsuit “the authorized equal of alchemy” and calls for that or not it’s dismissed outright. The announcement, made Thursday in a information launch, features a 34-page authorized response. Nevertheless it additionally title drops one of the vital potent authorized minds within the rarefied realm of TCG legislation, Brian Lewis, whose work as the overall counsel at Wizards of the Coast helped pave the best way for the present dominance of Magic: The Gathering — but additionally the bigger ecosystem of recent buying and selling card video games extra usually.
To get you up to the mark on the problems at hand, perceive that Higher Deck’s lawsuit landed with fairly a dramatic thud when it was revealed on June 7. In it, the California-based writer of sports activities playing cards, video games, and buying and selling playing cards alleges that Disney Lorcana co-designer Ryan Miller had beforehand created an analogous recreation that’s “almost equivalent” to Disney Lorcana whereas below contract with Higher Deck. It additionally asks that the launch of the sport, set for August this 12 months, be stopped with an injunction.
Ravensburger vehemently disputes Higher Decks’ claims. In it’s response, Ravensburger even calls into query each the timing and the venue of the lawsuit itself. Taken altogether, it paints Higher Deck’s efforts to design a competing TCG as lazy, and its authorized wrangling as wholly opportunistic.
“Higher Deck claims it might have sought the return of confidential data and/or prevented its workers from speaking with Mr. Miller if it was conscious of Mr. Miller’s employment at Ravensburger and the corporate’s work on a competing TCG,” reads the movement to dismiss. “However Higher Deck was conscious of Mr. Miller’s employment with Ravensburger and work on Lorcana when the sport was introduced in September 2022. And regardless of that consciousness, Higher Deck did nothing. Higher Deck can not now lament that it was broken by its personal inaction.”
It’s a complicated authorized case by any estimation, and touches on problems with work-for-hire and non-compete agreements (or the dearth thereof). However at its core this can be a lawsuit about recreation mechanics. So the addition of Lewis as a authorized advisor to Ravensburger is due to this fact notable. That’s as a result of Lewis, in his function with Wizards of the Coast within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, was instrumental in securing the preliminary patents that protected Magic across the time of its launch. Those self same patents and the authorized work that surrounds them have since fashioned the authorized framework for buying and selling card video games globally. With out them, it’s unlikely that both Magic or every other profitable TCG would exist in the identical kind it does at this time.
“Ravensburger has a particularly robust case right here,” reads a quote from Lewis within the information launch, “and we hope it will likely be dismissed outright based mostly on at this time’s movement. Whereas we respect the legitimate mental property rights of others, this seems to be extra of a PR stunt than a real authorized dispute. I additionally need to add that I’ve had the nice fortune to know Ryan Miller personally for over 20 years and take into account him to be an individual of the very best moral requirements.”
“We’re glad to be shifting ahead with the authorized course of and really feel very assured in our place,” stated Lisa Krueger, senior communications director for Ravensburger North America. “Within the meantime, our group is preserving its deal with the upcoming launch. We’re excited to see everybody at Gen Con and may’t wait to see followers start to buy this recreation in our sales space.”
For a deeper dive on the nuts and bolts of Lewis’ greater than three a long time of labor within the TCG area, take a look at The Booster Pack Community’s in-depth, 95-minute interview from January.
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