Mad Catz Interactive was sued by L.A.-based competitor Pelican Ac...
Mad Catz Interactive was sued by L.A.-based competitor Pelican Accessories, which charged that Mad Catz had “conspired with cheat code content provider Fire International to misappropriate Pelican Accessories’ proprietary game enhancement encryption codes.” It also accused Mad Catz and…
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Fire of “conspiracy to defraud Pelican Accessories in connection with Mad Catz’s recent acquisition of the GameShark trademark from Interact.” Last month, Mad Catz bought GameShark brand and Web site URL from Recoton for $5 million (CED Jan 24 p3). It also signed multiyear technology deal with Doncaster, England-based Fire International giving Mad Catz N. American rights to Fire’s videogame enhancement technology (CED Jan 27 p9). Pelican said its complaint presented “a laundry list of claims against Mad Catz, Fire International and its principal shareholder, Jason Cooper, for a series of ‘bad acts.'” Complaint charged Fire and Pelican had participated in joint venture for more than 2 years in connection with promotion and development of Codebreaker line of game enhancement products in U.S. Pelican said: “Using confidential information it gained from its fiduciary relationship with Pelican Accessories, Fire is alleged to have disclosed confidential bid information to Mad Catz, thereby allowing it to become the successful bidder for the GameShark trademark. In addition, the suit alleges that Mad Catz and Fire had been negotiating ‘under the table’ for months while Fire was representing to Pelican Accessories that the business relationship between Fire and Pelican was solid and exclusive.” Pelican said “the unprecedented level of unethical behavior by Mad Catz and Fire left Pelican with no alternative but to take this legal action.” Pelican Pres. Chris Richards declined to comment further but said his company “would soon be filing a motion for preliminary injunction to stop Mad Catz from introducing its GameShark line of products based upon trade secrets misappropriated from Pelican.” Pelican also said “retailers who decide to risk carrying the new GameShark products containing proprietary trade secrets from Pelican Accessories may be asked to remove those products from their shelves in the near future.” As for new content for Codebreaker products, Richards said Pelican already had created its own in-house content development group that company said would “exponentially increase its speed to market with new Codebreaker products.” Mad Catz had made no comment by our deadline.