Law of Cards: Topps Dismissed from Electronic Trading Cards Lawsuit
A slew of defendants just followed Panini's lead, and have left the Wildcat electronic card lawsuit.
As previously reported, on December 17, Wildcat settled with and then dismissed Panini from the lawsuit. In short order thereafter, Electronic Arts (on December 19), Wizards of the Coast (on December 19), Topps (on December 20) and Sony (on December 20) also entered into settlement agreements, and were later dismissed from the suit by Wildcat.
This dramatically shrinks the case and leaves just a few defendants, including Konami, who very well might have been the only party that argued against Wildcat in the December 20 Markman hearing.
The terms of Wildcat's settlements with Electronic Arts, Wizards of the Coast, Topps and Sony are confidential (like the Panini settlement), so it's difficult to tell who "won" and who "lost" (if anyone did win or lose).
However, if things keep following this settlement track, the clear winner will be the court because it won’t need to rule on the esoteric argument of whether an electronic trading card that only "is" collected rather than one that "can be" collected infringes this patent.
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