Aviator LLC has granted Aviator Studio an exclusive, irrevocable global licence for its branding and intellectual property.
The licence will cover gambling services and online game production, in a significant boost for the firm’s global portfolio.
It comes after Aviator LLC enjoyed further success in its legal challenges against parties accused of copyright infringement. Georgia’s Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling that SPRIBE OU had registered Aviator LLC’s trademarks in bad faith, violating its copyright.
Similar legal cases in the EUIPO and UK are advancing, and SPRIBE OU has been given deadlines to respond after multiple extensions.
Aviator LLC emphasised the cases underlined its commitment to protecting its IP globally and willingness to take legal action against unauthorised use to uphold its licensing agreement.
Last year, the land-based operator invalidated Spribe’s trademarks for its flagship crash game Aviator in a Georgian court. Off the back of this, the casino operator later set out plans to “challenge Spribe’s trademarks worldwide”.
After the first successful appeal, Aviator filed a further trademark invalidation claim at the EUIPO, in which it claimed that the games studio registered its Aviator trademarks in bad faith and in violation of the operator’s EU copyright.
Aviator LLC also recently settled its long term dispute with Flutter Entertainment through the agreement of a long-term commercial partnership. The deal, reached at the start of the year, means Aviator-branded online games are now marketed and distributed internationally by Flutter.
Ensuring originality has provided the industry with a significant challenge in modern times, underpinned by a spate of high profile copyright cases.
Speaking to iGaming Expert, Martyn Hannah, Co-Founder and MD at Comparasino, said: “If I were operating a game studio, it would certainly make me take a very close look at how we were approaching the development of themes, designs, sound, mechanics and technology, and I’d do everything I could to ensure there was no risk of infringing someone else’s IP, nor of having my IP infringed.”
He added: “I don’t think the issue is the volume of games being created but rather the need for studios to innovate, get ahead of their rivals and ultimately generate revenue and profit. There has been such a strong drive for studios to come up with their own trademarked mechanics that I think we were always going to arrive at the point where there were strong similarities between some of them.
“I guess more careful consideration needs to be given to game design and how studios look to replicate the success of their rival’s titles – the fishing theme/cash collect genre has a lot of games that look and play very much the same but from different providers. These providers are all looking to cash in on the popularity of a combination (fishing and cash collect) that was initially pioneered by a particular studio. There’s a pretty fine line with this stuff and it’s up to each studio how close to the bone they want to go.”
