Wargaming has filed a third lawsuit against a team of former employees — Blitz Team
The judicial history between Wargaming and the Blitz Team, founded by former employees of the corporation, continues. Today, the “tank” company announced a new lawsuit against the indie team. This time it is filed in the Federal District Court of Los Angeles. This is the third Wargaming lawsuit against Blitz Team.
The first game of Blitz Team — Battle Prime
In a new lawsuit, Wargaming accuses the defendant of:
- misuse of trademarks within the framework of US federal law;
- in unfair competition;
- in the misuse of trademarks that violate the norms of common law;
- in unfair competition, according to the Business and Professional Code of the State of California.
As part of the charges, the company demands to cancel the Blitz Team trademark registration applications.
Also, Wargaming shares its version of the history of working with the Blitz Team as a justification for the accusation:
“The company Blitz Team was created by former employees of Wargaming, who are currently using in their commercial activities the reputation of well—known mobile Wargaming games – World of Tanks Blitz and World of Warships Blitz.While working at Wargaming, the defendants were part of the World of Tanks Blitz (WOTB) development team, which was known as the Blitz Team among employees and management, as well as in video game development circles.
Wargaming believes that the defendants chose the name Blitz intentionally in order to use the reputation of well-known trademarks of Wargaming.Prior to the departure from Wargaming of the employees who subsequently created the company Blitz Team, the WOTB development team was headed by the persons indicated in the statement of claim (“WOTB Management”), who received a decent reward for their work.
In addition to their salaries, they received additional payments from the profits of World of Tanks Blitz totaling more than $10 million. As part of the agreements with Wargaming, they pledged not to compete with their former employer and not to poach his employees for a certain time after leaving.In April 2017, the management of WOTB announced its intention to leave Wargaming and open its own video game development company.
They left Wargaming after a year of fruitless negotiations on new terms of cooperation. In April 2018, a few days after the departure of WOTB Management, the Wargaming employees who left with them created a new company, called it the Blitz Team and lured more than 30 members of the World of Tanks Blitz development team. Now the defendants use the word Blitz in their commercial activities for the development and operation of mobile games.“
Earlier, Wargaming filed two more lawsuits:
- in February 2020, to the District Court of Nicosia (Cyprus), in which she asked to prohibit the use of the word Blitz by the studio in any names;
- in December 2019, in the Republic of Belarus, against employees of the Blitz Team, where she accused them of unauthorized use of the DAVA Framework/DAVA Engine technology.
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