An Eastern District of Texas jury found last week that Clash of Clans game maker, Supercell Oy, infringed at least one claim among a collection of patents held by Japanese game maker Gree Inc. Now Supercell must pay a lump sum of $92.2 million.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
The jury found Supercell Oy — who also created Clash Royale and Hay Day games — willfully infringed at least one of the asserted patent claims brought by Gree. According to court documents, the jury determined Gree was owed $92,176,058 after deliberating for just over two hours.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap presided, convening the jury on April 30th and tasking them with determining whether Supercell infringed a series of patents owned byGreen THAT COVR computer operations in “city-building games.”
According to Gree’s lawyer, Supercell profited around $3 billion from these games in the US, using patented features that improved the functionality of the games.
The verdict form did not ask the jury to review each asserted patent claim on the issue of infringement, but instead asked whether Supercell infringed any of the asserted claims of the patents-at-issue. The jury checked “yes” for that question, according to the form.
The jury also denied Supercell’s counterclaims of invalidity on four of the six asserted patents, according to the form.
“Supercell respects the jury system, but is of course disappointed in the verdict,” Supercell said in a statement provided to Law360 on Friday. “Supercell plans to appeal.”
This is by no means the first legal battle between the two gaming “rivals”; Gree filed 32 preliminary injunction actions and six patent lawsuits against Supercell in 2017 and 2018.
In return, Supercell has filed more than 20 review petitions with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board over Gree’s patents.
In a different case last year, a jury in the same Eastern District court granted Gree $8.5 million in damages over a different set of patents related to Clash of Clans.
A third trial between the two developers is scheduled to take place later this year.
Read more articles from Haute Lawyer, visit https://hauteliving.com/hautelawyer/
