02.Apr.2023
Various (ANF)
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Hyperion/Cloanto litigation: judgment in the main lawsuit issued
Cloanto had sued Hyperion in
2017, initially to have a judge declare that the Italian company is the
rightful owner of the "Amiga" mark and that Hyperion neither has the right to
fight this trademark registration nor register similar marks like "AmigaOS"
or "AmigaOne" itself. The lawsuit was later merged with another one inititated by Hyperion, which
also added Amino, Itec and Amiga Inc. as additional parties to the litigation
and expanded the scope of the laswuit to cover issues of breach of contract,
trademark violations and alleged IP theft.
Mike Battilana of Cloanto had attempted to also have his 'C-A Acquisition
Corporation', the entity that acquired the Amiga copyrights
from Amiga Inc. in early 2019, added as another plaintiff to the above
lawsuit. The judge denied this
request, since the motion was filed way too late. A few days later, the
C-A Acquisition Corporation filed its own
lawsuit against Hyperion, but this case is currently frozen until the
main lawsuit has been resolved. Already in 2019, the judge declared that Cloanto lacked
standing to sue Hyperion for breach of the 2009 settlement agreement.
Last tuesday, judge Martinez issued a judgment in the
main litigation between Amino, Itec, Amiga Inc. and Cloanto on one side and
Hyperion on the other. Basically, he declared that none of the four
plaintiffs has any standing to sue Hyperion for any of the alleged violations
raised by them:
- In addition to Cloanto (see above), Amino, Itec and Amiga Inc. can't sue
for breach of contract, since they transferred "all rights [...] including
the right to sue [...] for past infringements" to the C-A Acquisition
Corporation.
- Cloanto's accusation that Hyperion changed copyright notices in their
AmigaOS releases to assign ownership to itself, might be a violation of
copyright - but thanks to a "Non-Aggression Clause" in the 2009
settlement agreement, only the C-A Acquisition Corpoation could hold Hyperion
responsible for that.
- The various alleged violations of trademark rights are considered moot,
partially because Hyperion withdrew its objections to the other parties'
marks and abandoned its own attempts to register trademarks in the US and
partially because the only party that could prosecute trademark violations is
C-A Acquisition Corporation.
If none of the parties object to this ruling, the case would end without
resolving any of the issues between Cloanto/C-A Acquisition and Hyperion.
Judge Martinez simply declared that only C-A Acquisition Corporation - renamed to Amiga Corporation in
the meantime - is entitled to sue Hyperion for breach of contract or violating
trademark rights or Amiga related copyright. Such a case already exists, but
has been stayed until the main litigation discussed here is resolved.
Approached by amiga-news.de, Mike Battilana didn't want to issue a statement
"yet". Hyperion posted a press release
on its website, referring to this judgment as a "sweeping victory".
(cg) (Translation: cg)
[News message: 02. Apr. 2023, 20:10] [Comments: 0]
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