New Delhi: India’s largest vernacular gaming platform WinZo has filed a lawsuit in Delhi High Court against gaming unicorn Mobile Premier League (MPL) over alleged copyright violation.
WinZo said in a statement on Saturday that the matter is now listed for further proceedings on July 4.
The platform said that in March, it discovered that MPL copied its proprietary game ‘World War’ with a similar product, in an identical format with the identical name.
When this was brought to MPL’s notice on March 28, they allegedly took down the format completely from their platform.
“However, in a complete volte face, MPL re-commenced using the entire identical format with each of the distinctive features in use by WinZo, by 2nd April,” said the vernacular gaming platform.
This time, MPLArenamed their tournament as ‘Team Clash’, but the notifications/pop-ups sent to users still used ‘World War’, the company alleged.
WinZo then sent a legal notice to MPL and when MPL refused to cease and desist from taking down the Format, WinZo was forced to file a suit seeking injunction to restrain MPL from continuing to use the Format on account of copyright infringement, passing off and unfair competition.
Commencing in April 2020, the game currently has nearly 80 million registered users.
WinZo said it has applied for a patent for the invention, copyright registration in relation to the expression of the Format, and trademark for ‘World War’.
The matter was heard before Justice Naveen Chawla in the Delhi High Court on Friday.
“MPL’s counsel stated that the MPL has stopped using the mark ‘World War’ and was willing to give an undertaking that the mark ‘World War’ shall not be used with the Defendant’s game/offering,” according to WinZo.
Concerning the other allegations made by WinZo, MPL’s Counsel made a statement that MPL shall attempt to resolve the matter through negotiations with WinZo.
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