Riot Games and MOONTON, the developers behind League of Legends and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB), respectively, have reached a settlement to end their intellectual property disputes, the origins of which could be traced back to 2017.
Image Credits: Riot Games
In a statement shared with media over email, MOONTON Games confirmed that a “global settlement” between the two companies had been reached. Thus, Riot Games, which had first said during Mobile Legends’ 2016 release that it had copied League of Legends, will be withdrawing all related lawsuits.
“MOONTON Games and Riot Games have reached a global settlement on their intellectual property disputes. After several rounds of communication, the two parties officially signed a settlement agreement recently, and Riot Games decided to formally withdraw the related lawsuits,” the email read.
MOONTON Games and Riot Games: A long history of legal disputes
Riot Games first complained against MOONTON back in 2016 to Google and Apple, demanding that the game, which at that time was called Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA, be taken down from application stores for copyright infringement. As a result, MOONTON took down the game and re-released it later as Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
MLBB has grown to become a major esports title like League of Legends (Image Credits: MOONTON)
Riot then took the Chinese developers to court in July 2017, claiming that the game had copied elements from League of Legends. It followed up with another lawsuit in the US in May 2022, even saying MLBB’s logo copied LoL. This, however, was dismissed by a California District Court, with a judge stating that the dispute should be taken up in a Chinese court instead. This was for two main reasons.
Firstly, because Riot’s China-based parent company, Tencent, which also worked on the development of League of Legends, refused to join the case. Secondly, with Tencent and Riot already involved in a similar legal dispute in China, the US court felt that it was “unfair” to allow the two companies to bring a “two-front war” against the MLBB developers.
Now, it appears that the long legal disputes are set to end after today’s news of a global settlement. The exact details of the settlement haven’t been revealed, though.
This article was originally published here
