Upper Deck Scores Legal Victory Against Topps
Sports Card Company Firmly Denies Topps’ Allegations of Any Wrong-Doing
North Las Vegas, NV (April 15, 2009) – The Upper Deck Company won a legal victory today when a New York judge denied a Temporary Restraining Order sought by Topps to prevent the release of 2009 Upper Deck Series Two and 2009 O-Pee-Chee baseball card products.
Yesterday, the Topps Company filed a lawsuit against Upper Deck claiming copyright infringement. Upper Deck strongly denies the allegations and did, in fact, do its due diligence when researching, clearing and securing approvals to use the card designs. Upper Deck received necessary legal approvals and proper protocol was followed to ensure there were no infringements.
“Based on the tactics utilized by Topps thus far, Upper Deck questions the validity of this claim,” said Bernd Becker, Upper Deck’s vice president of Trading Cards. “We strongly disagree with the allegations. In today’s challenging economic environment, it seems petty and counterproductive to file such a frivolous suit.”
So is that it then or is this just one small part of a larger war?
3 comments:
This is just a preliminary matter. I am not sure about New York, but to succeed on a Temporary Restraining Order in my jurisdiction, the moving party must show substantial and irreparable harm if the relief isn't granted. By irreparable harm the court will look at whether the moving party could be made whole if they prevail.
Just because the TRO was denied, does not mean that a permanent injunction will not be granted. In order to be successful for a permanent injunction, the court requires:
A moving party
must show a likelihood of success on the merits, that irreparable harm will be suffered in the
absence of preliminary relief, and that the “balancing of hardships” favor such relief. See e.g.
Mentor Graphics Corp. v. Quickturn Design Sys., 150 F.3d 1374, 1377 (9th Cir. 1998).
The likelihood of success on the merits is a very difficult burden for the moving party to meet.
Word Verification: Pubhorr,I have been called worse.
Thanks for the clarification.
I pretty much agree with everything that Stusigpi posted. At the end of the day, Topps has to work out how far it wants to go in all of this. With the legal costs and all the other related hassles be worth it?
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