Upper Deck remains defiant in wake of Disney Lorcana publisher’s call to dismiss “baseless claims” of ‘stolen’ TCG
“We will continue to prosecute this case to enforce our rights and to ensure fair play within the gaming community.”
The card game publisher seeking a lawsuit against Disney Lorcana studio Ravensburger over claims it ‘stole’ the TCG and its co-designer breached a confidentiality agreement has remained defiant in the wake of a recent motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Upper Deck Entertainment filed a lawsuit against Ravensburger and Ryan Miller last month, claiming that Disney Lorcana “pilfered” its own upcoming trading card game Rush of Ikorr, on which Miller previously worked.
As well as accusing Ravensburger of “stealing and copying” a number of Ikorr’s game mechanics in Lorcana, the lawsuit alleged that Miller had breached confidentiality clauses agreed during his tenure at Upper Deck by ‘transporting’ his contributions to Ikorr to his work on Lorcana - something that Upper Deck claimed Ravensburger actively “aided and encouraged”.
Upper Deck is seeking general and special damages from Ravensburger as compensation, as well as calling on the court to halt the release of Disney Lorcana - which is currently planned to release at US tabletop convention Gen Con at the start of August, having released a limited number of promo cards last year.
Ravensburger slammed the claims as “baseless claims [that are] entirely without merit” at the time and insisted that Lorcana’s launch would go ahead as planned, before filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit entirely last week. Brian Lewis, a veteran lawyer for Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon now serving as Ravensburger’s legal advisor, called Upper Deck’s complaint “more of a PR stunt than a genuine legal dispute”.
In the wake of the strongly-worded dismissal, Upper Deck president Jason Masherah has now responded with Upper Deck’s own sharp declaration that it won’t be backing down on its legal claims anytime soon.
"Ravensburger’s attempted dismissal fails to address Upper Deck’s merited lawsuit to protect Upper Deck’s intellectual property,” Masherah said in a statement provided to Dicebreaker. “This is a strategic deflection of our core allegations.
“We will continue to prosecute this case to enforce our rights and to ensure fair play within the gaming community."