The United States District Court for the Central District of California has dismissed Riot Games’ copyright infringement lawsuit against Moonton Technology earlier in November.

Riot filed the lawsuit in May this year, claiming that some of the in-game content and promotional materials in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang were copied from their games League of Legends and League of Legends: Wild Rift.

Judge Michael Fitzgerald, who presided over the case, concluded that the ownership concerns are “unresolvable”, and granted the MLBB developer’s motion to have the case moved to a more suitable court.

Outcome of Riot Games’ copyright infringement lawsuit in US court

MOONTON logo
Credit: Moonton

Judge Fitzgerald found that both Riot Games and its parent company Tencent Holdings have been using each other’s copyrighted works in their respective games.

This, according to the court document, made it entirely unclear which elements of the games are made by Riot and which are made by Tencent.

“Such knowledge is critical to Moonton’s copyright defenses. It thus remains unfair to allow Riot and Tencent to bring a two-front war against Moonton unless and until Tencent decides to show up on both battlefields,” the judge wrote in the court document.

As such, the US court has ruled that the case is better off heard in a Chinese court where tech giant Tencent Holdings is based.

In a statement posted on Reuters, Riot’s associate general counsel Dan Nabel said that the company strongly disagrees with the decision and is considering an appeal.

This isn’t the first time both companies were embroiled in a legal dispute. In 2017, Riot took the MLBB developer to court for allegedly copying in-game elements from League of Legends. The case was eventually dismissed, citing that a Chinese court is better suited to hear the case.

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