Upper Deck is back in court, although this time it’s as the plaintiff. The company has filed papers asking for declaratory relief after it claims Executive Trading LLC, of Tacoma, WA, used “shakedown” methods to try and get the company to pay $350,000 for what Executive claims were copyright breaches of its cards featuring political figures.
Upper Deck put World of Politics cards inside its World of Sports product as the race for the White House began to get underway.
“In July of 2012, defendant sent plaintiff a litigation demand letter accusing plaintiff of ‘stealing’ their ‘ideas’ for political cards, of violating certain alleged copyrights, and demanding that Upper Deck pay plaintiff $350,000,” the complaint states. “It is entirely unclear how defendant came up with that number. The demand figure, as well as the demand letter itself suggests nothing more than a shakedown of plaintiff. Plaintiff started developing and distributing political cards well before defendant even existed.”
Upper Deck has been producing cards of politicians as inserts in its products for several years. Executive has come to the market with non-standard sized cards it distributes as boxed sets.
Courthouse News has details of the suit and a link to the actual court papers.
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