Madden designer suit against EA going to trial [update]
Original Madden designer Robin Antonick has won the first phase of his case against Electronic Arts, alleging unpaid royalties for derivative works based on his design from the 1980s.
Update: The story originally incorrectly stated that Electronic Arts had lost the case brought against it by Robin Antonick. The story has been corrected below.
Electronic Arts has been denied its final attempt to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it by Robin Antonick, the designer of the original Madden game. Antonick is seeking unpaid royalties, punitive damages, and disgorgement of profits. The trial is scheduled to begin on July 17.
According to his representative's firm (via GamePolitics), Antonick's series of publishing and development contracts entitles him to royalties on any derivative works made from his original creation, including the current annual releases. He alleges that EA has not paid him millions in royalties, and hasn't kept his work confidential as stated in their contract.
The press release from his representatives states that the jury will be tasked with determining royalties from the $200 million in revenues between 1990 and 1996, with the era from 1997-2013 coming at a later phase of the trial. Friday's ruling regarded whether the statute of limitations had expired on filing a lawsuit. The jury ruled that Antonick did not suspect, and would not have known, about any wrongdoing before 2005.
"We have very compelling evidence indicating that EA used Mr. Antonick's ground-breaking code and design elements as the basis for both past and present Madden NFL titles," said Robert Carey, one of Antonick’s attorneys. "Yet, EA has failed to compensate him as required by his agreement or give him proper credit for his work. We look forward to proving our case at trial, and we are very confident that we will prevail."
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Steve Watts posted a new article, EA loses suit against original Madden designer.
Original Madden designer Robin Antonick has won the first phase of his case against Electronic Arts, alleging unpaid royalties for derivative works based on his design from the 1980s.-
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but madden runs on a different engine then it did back in the old days i don't think they guy should have won the case only because it was so long ago contracts have expiration dates im sure it has run out by now. not to stick up for EA but thats a nice chunk of cash that is being taken away that could be put into new games instead of making someone who is probably already rich richer. court system is backwards anyway
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Yeah, per the other gaming site link they said 'lost,' but their link to the law firm: http://hb-ip.com/our-work/MaddenNFL - says the last attempt to dismiss has failed and they're about to *go* to trial
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Look I'm all for the guy and all but how come he is allowed to file for this nearly 30 years after the fact? Doesn't he have a limited time to file a claim like that (I forgot the American legal term for that)?
That's like a patent troll waiting for a rich company to hurt their patent while they are aware for years that others are doing it and they never react until they can actually make bank.
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