Activision Blizzard is still not out of all its legal troubles. The company will have to pay millions of dollars to settle a patent-related legal dispute it initiated in 2015. After years of lawsuits, the authorities did not take its side, so it will have to shell out a significant amount of money.
It all started 9 years ago, when the company Acceleration Bay sued Activision Blizzard and accused it of using a patented information-sharing technology in several of its games. The judges ruled that the Xbox studios did infringe 2 patents in the case.
Activision Blizzard to pay $23 MDD for patent infringement
Activision Blizzard defended itself to authorities and claimed that it never used Acceleration Bay technology in any of its games. It further demanded that any possible penalty should not exceed $300,000 USD in damages.
However, the authorities took a different view and imposed a payment of $23.4 million, of which $18 million is for patent infringement in World of Warcraft and $5.4 million for its unauthorized use in various installments of Call of Duty.
“While we are disappointed, we believe there is a strong basis for appeal. We have never used the patent technologies at issue in our games,” said a representative of Activision Blizzard.
On the other hand, Acceleration Bay's lawyer was satisfied with the victory, as they fought for 9 years. This company has also had conflicts with other developers, such as Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive and Amazon.
Recently, Activision paid more than $50 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit for all the scandals that took place in the company under Bobby Kotick's tenure. Now, it will have to shell out even more money for another legal dispute.
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