On June 28, 2018, Lucasfilm Ltd. asked a California federal judge to find that two mobile game developers ripped off “sabacc,” a fictional card game created used in the Star Wars movies.
In their motion for partial summary judgment, LucasFilm asked the court to find that it owned the rights to the fictional game. LucasFilm further argued that mobile app developers took copyrighted elements directly from its Star Wars movie franchise to advertise its mobile phone game on Facebook and Twitter. In response, defendants argued that “this whole case is a trademark dispute. It’s a dispute over the verified trade name Sabacc, not a copyright dispute.”
The suit asserts claims of copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition, also seeking to cancel the trademark registration for the “sabacc” mark obtained by the mobile app developers.
The case is Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC et al. v. Ren Ventures Ltd. et al., case number 3:17-cv-07249, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
* With over thirty years of experience as an attorney, Steven Lowe is one of the most highly regarded entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles. Cases his firm has handled have appeared in the Hollywood Reporter numerous times, and he has been consistently selected as a top rated attorney in Super Lawyers magazine, among other awards and achievements. Mr. Lowe is also a Co-Founder and current President of the California Society of Entertainment Lawyers, a not-for-profit artists’ rights organization.
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