Riot have filed a lawsuit against mobile game developers Shanghai Moontoon Technology for allegedly infringing on the League of Legends IP with three games: Magic Rush: Heroes, Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
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The lawsuit, filed last week at the Central District Court of California, claims that the aforementioned games knowingly infringed on multiple aspects of LoL, “including but not limited to LoL’s characters, artwork, map designs, and unit and monster designs.”
The lawsuit is filled with comparison images, showing similarities between LoL and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, from map designs to characters and even fonts.
When approached by Riot, it is claimed that the defendants made minor changes and name changes, only to re-release their product again. At one point, the game was allegedly removed from the Google Play Store, only to reappear under the new name of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
Shanghai Moontoon Technology have since released a statement about the lawsuit, calling accusations “unreal.”
“Recently, some media have published negative and unreal reports against Mobile Legends,” Shanghai Moontoon Technology say in a Facebook post. “Mobile Legends is a MOBA game that is developed by Moonton independently, and its copyright has already been registered and protected in multiple countries all over the world. Moontoon has independent intellectual property rights.
“Mobile Legends and all the users will not be affected by these unreal reports and we will keep providing the best gameplay experience to players all over the world. Meanwhile, for some media and competitors who have spread the unreal information and rumors against us, we reserve the right to protect ourselves and pursue legal actions.”
Cheers, Slingshot Esports.