After losing a couple of high profile cases recently, Upper Deck earned a legal victory when a panel of judges ruled in its favor over the invention of the memorabilia card.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled 2-1 that the company did not violate any laws.
The long-running case dates back to the strike-shortened 1994 baseball season when a man named Adrian Gluck patented an idea of attaching a piece of memorabilia to a traditional trading card.
Media Technologies Licensing, which licensed the patents, accused Upper Deck of patent infringement. A U.S. District judge ruled the patents invalid but the case then went to appeal where once again, Upper Deck emerged victorious.
The memorabilia card’s roots in entertainment provided a frame of reference for the decision, which was spelled out in this story.
You can read the Court of Appeals’ decision and related papers below.
