Sony and development studio Shift Up Games they were Reported by Stellarbladea film company based in Louisiana, USA. As you may have already guessed, the lawsuit is related to the alleged trademark infringement with Stellar Bladethe action game that arrived on PS5 this year.
The lawsuit was filed by Stellarblade LLC and its owner, Griffith Chambers Mehaffey, and involves Shift Up Games, Sony, and the latter’s insurance company, with the documents alleging that the film company’s activities were damaged from the fact that the video game has a practically identical name. The only difference is the presence of a space between “Stellar” and “Blade”.
Request compensation and destruction of any material titled “Stellar Blade”
Mehaffey says that Stellarblade was founded in 2010 with the goal of providing multimedia entertainment services, including films, documentaries, and music videos, and that it has owned the website stellarblade.com since 2006. Interestingly, the trademark for Stellarblade, the film company, was registered in June 2023, while that for Stellar Blade, the video game, was registered in January of the same year.
Mehaffey explained that since the game changed its name to Stellar Blade in 2022 (it was previously announced as Project Eve), it has become difficult to find data and details about the film company onlinecondemning it to “digital obscurity”, which would potentially damage its business. It also claims that the His company logo and the game’s logo are similar in some waysparticularly regarding the color scheme and the stylized “S”.
In addition to compensation for damages and legal costs, the film company wants prevent Shift Up and Sony from using the name “Stellar Blade”and also demands that they hand over all material in their possession marked “Stellar Blade” so that Mehaffey and Stellarblade can destroy it. They are also demanding damages and legal fees.
“Mr. Mehaffey registered the domain stellarblade.com in 2006 and used the name ‘Stellarblade’ for his business for nearly 15 years,” the plaintiff’s attorney told IGN.
“Given this longstanding and public use, it is difficult to imagine that Shift Up and Sony were unaware of Mr. Mehaffey’s established rights before adopting their identical mark. We believe in fair competition, but when larger companies fail to respect the established rights of smaller companies, it is our responsibility to stand up and protect our brand. Defendants’ vastly superior resources have effectively monopolized online search results for Stellarblade, pushing Mr. Mehaffey’s longstanding business into digital obscurity and threatening the livelihood he has built over a decade.”
There has been no official response from Sony and Shift Up Games on the matter so far. In the meantime, it seems that Stellar Blade on PS5 is doing well, with numbers that could increase thanks to the PC version currently in progress.
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