VentureBeat and The Recorder, among other publications, reported that Fenwick client Peak Games filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Hasbro and Backflip Studios for cloning its popular mobile puzzle game Toy Blast.
The Recorder pointed out that in the complaint, Hasbro’s “My Little Pony game copied multiple elements from Toy Blast, including its 10-step tutorial for new players, the appearance of individual puzzle screens, and the game's scoring scheme, which awards points in bizarre quantities such as 1080, 1760, 3080 and 4760.”
Fenwick gaming practice chair and litigation partner Jennifer Kelly told VentureBeat, “Peak Games has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Hasbro and Backflip Studios for taking Peak’s popular game, Toy Blast, cloning it, and cloaking it under the My Little Pony brand. When the game was released last week, it was immediately obvious to all of us that this was just a reskin of Toy Blast. This was only confirmed as we looked at the game more deeply in the subsequent days.”
“Peak believes it is obligated to protect its teams’ creativity and hard work, and to discourage others from taking the shortcut of cloning a leading game in the genre. Under this circumstance, we felt it necessary to take the step of filing this action, which Peak has never done before, and did not do lightly,” Kelly continued.
Representing Peak Games are Fenwick’s Kelly, along with Eric Ball, Liwen Mah and Kunyu Ching.
The full articles are available through theVentureBeat website and The Recorder website (subscription required). Other publications reporting on the lawsuit include Corporate Counsel, PocketGamer.biz and GamesIndustry.Biz.