Tetris Owners Win Lawsuit Against iPhone App Clone

Published on: 4th Feb 2013

­The company that owns the rights to the original Tetris computer game says that it has won a lawsuit against Xio Interactive who had developed a clone of the popular game for sale on Apple's iTunes store.

The Tetris Company (TTC) said that the New Jersey District Court has granted final judgment in its favor for copyright and trade dress infringement. The Court has also entered an injunction which permanently prohibits Xio from "publicly displaying, selling, licensing, distributing, offering for sale, marketing, advertising, or promoting Mino."

Alexey Pajitnov, the Russian developer who created the Tetris game said, "It is truly a victory for us. I am happy the Court has validated that my work is protected by law. I hope there will be more people now enjoying the high quality version of our game."

The issue is significant in legal terms as it caused the court to carefully determine which parts of the game can be considered to be unique and which are sufficiently generic that no company could claim a copyright infringement. It was the extreme closeness of the Xio game to Tetris that ultimately proved its undoing as while individual components couldn't be copyrighted, their collective use could.

In December 2009, TTC filed a lawsuit against Xio alleging that Xio's Mino game infringed its copyrights and trade dress rights in its Tetris games. On May 30, 2012, the Court granted TTC's motion for summary judgement. The court has now issued the final ruling.

 

Tags: [mobile apps]  [tetris]