Whats the endgame in all of this anyway? Does Fizzer want damages or just to be left alone?
From
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/06/04/warzone-name-lawsuit/:
“At the very least, I would like to be made whole,” he said. “I spent about $60,000 on the domain name* and legal fees, plus three years of my life into this brand and it hurts business to have to change the title.”
...
“I’m just interested in making sure my business doesn’t get destroyed, since this is my only source of income,” Ficker said. “I want to get back to making video games. That is what I enjoy doing. I hope to work on this game for the rest of my life.”
From Warzone's Prayer for Relief:
Counterclaimant... requests that this Court enter judgement in its favor for the following relief:
1. Dismissal of [Activision's] claims against [Warzone.com] with prejudice;
2. ... restraining [Activision]... from:
a. ... making unauthorized use of the WARZONE Mark;
...
4. Requiring [Activision] to pay over to [Warzone.com] monetary damages caused by its wrongful acts, and directing that such profits be [tripled] due to [Activision's] willful actions.
5. Requiring [Activision] to pay [Warzone.com] monetary damages for reverse trademark confusion, and directing that such damages be [tripled] due to [Activision's] willful actions.
...
They're going for the trademark to the word "Warzone" + for $, but unclear what amount. 3 times damages could be anything, because it comes down to how you calculate damages**. More than $10k, less than 0.25% of
Call of Duty: Warzone profits. Pretty broad range between a one-time payment of $10,000 and up to $5,000,000/yr.
If/once the counterclaim gets closer to trial, we'll have more concrete numbers, although the ask might be an enhanced royalty rate that we can't convert to dollars without knowing CoD's profitability. The trial might also be bifurcated (liability phase, then damages phase), so we might not know the ask until/unless it gets to the damages phase.
* bonus:
** see
Google v. Oracle for an extreme example - Oracle sought $8.8 billion based on some very aggressive calculations based on the # of Java licenses Google would've had to buy if they didn't reimplement Java for Android. Of course, no court was going to grant anything close to that in damages. For reverse consumer confusion theories (like this case), the question of how to calculate damages is even harder than for trademark confusion in general (where the rule of thumb is lost profits).
Edited 8/24/2021 01:49:55
