Adam Roarty is a journalist covering sports betting, regulation, and industry innovation for CasinoBeats. His coverage includes tax increases in the UK, covering breaking stories in the ever-evolving landscape of US betting such as the...
Read Full BioGame developers Light & Wonder and Aristocrat will appear in court on October 17 in an attempt to settle the dispute over claims Light & Wonder stole game math from Aristocrat.
In the latest court hearing, a judge will decide how much information the companies must disclose to determine the extent of the violations.
In June, Light & Wonder received a positive ruling from the Nevada courts as a judge ruled Aristocrat’s discovery request was too broad. The judge asked Aristocrat to be specific about the trade secrets it wanted to protect under the litigation.
Aristocrat will challenge that ruling with an oral argument in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada in October.
Dragon Links to Dragon Trains
The dispute centers around Aristocrat claiming that Light & Wonder copied its title, Dragon Link, in various versions of its games.
Aristocrat argues that former employees of the company switched to Light & Wonder and divulged trade secrets. Light & Wonder then developed games based on the math used in Dragon Link.
Aristocrat ramped up its complaint in July, alleging the copyright violations are widespread.
Games noted as using the math in Dragon Link that is “difficult, if not impossible, for others to replicate” include Dragon Unleashed Link, Jewel of the Dragon, Dragon Train, and Dragon Train Grand Central.
Aristocrat alleges that many of Light & Wonder’s games may have been developed after employees accessed its secret files. To determine how many games violate copyright laws, it wants Light & Wonder to disclose the math models for a wide range of games.
Former Aristocrat Employee at Center of Dispute
Additionally, it wants a list of all the projects that game developer Emma Charles worked on. Charles is at the center of the dispute after developing the game Dragon Train, which Aristocrat claims was created using secret files.
Charles was an employee of Aristocrat before switching to Light & Wonder. Amid the legal dispute, she has now left Light & Wonder.
Light & Wonder does not dispute that employees had access to some Aristocrat files, but says Aristocrat is overstating the significance and hasn’t identified a specific trade secret that was misappropriated.
It also argues that even though files may show an employee’s name in the access log, this does not mean the employee viewed the file or, more specifically, examined Aristocrat’s confidential math.
As the case rumbles on, Light & Wonder pulled the game Jewel of the Dragon and adapted Dragon Train. It insists it is not using any secret Aristocrat math in other games.
In a company statement, it said, “We have structured development of new games to solve the issue raised by Emma Charles’ use of certain math in the design of Dragon Train.”
The company is reluctant to disclose all the requested information to a competitor. Instead, it wants Aristocrat to detail the secret math, then Light & Wonder can search through its games to see if it has been replicated. It says it has conducted an internal review and found no further use of Aristocrat’s data.
The judgment in June sided with Light & Wonder, but Aristocrat hopes it can argue for the release of more information in October.
