Avance successfully represented a mobile gaming company in a case concerning an application for injunction before the Finnish Market Court. The Market Court rejected the application lodged against our client.
In its injunction application, a former contracting partner of our client alleged that a mobile game developed by our client, launched for global distribution in early July 2020, contained unauthorized intellectual property rights and business secrets of the former contracting partner. Due to its allegations, the former contracting partner demanded that the Market Court order our client to stop distributing versions of its mobile game to the market under a penalty fine of EUR 500,000. Our client denied all allegations of the former contracting partner as unfounded.
The Market Court rejected the injunction application of the former contracting partner. In its decision, the Market Court ruled that the applicant had failed to specify the parts of our client’s mobile game that allegedly contained the former contracting partner’s intellectual property rights or business secrets. In addition, pursuant to the Market Court’s decision, the applicant had failed to demonstrate with the required degree of probability in an injunction matter that that our client’s mobile game would contain the alleged rights of the former contracting partner and that the game would infringe such rights. The Market Court further accepted our client’s submission that, in any event, the agreement between our client and the former contracting partner had contained an intellectual property clause, stipulating the right for our client to keep using the results of the contractual collaboration also after the agreement is terminated, and that such contractual clause had not lost its relevance.
The Market Court’s decision remains subject to appeal and is therefore not yet final.