Case dismissed! Discovery and Tardigrade game "not similar"
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What can I say? I'm a think-outside-the-box kinda guy.
And there have been several appearances in Star Trek Online, a CBS licencee.The Tardigrade is getting merchandise, so perhaps it's not seen as a legal issue for CBS
https://www.trektoday.com/content/2019/02/eaglemoss-discovery-starship-pictures/
Including my cutie here <3
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Real life is getting served lawsuit papers as we speak.Or in real life.
It knows what it did.
All it did was showcase the EMH having his own family with a brat teenage son. 
Yeah, and made the Doctor go through the death of child for the sake of realism. Yeah, that happened.
I actually addressed this line of thinking in the post you quoted.
Having it known that you fight the hell out of these cases and paper the hell out of plaintiffs is great, but in reality if a case like this is not dismissed CBS will ultimately have much more to lose than plaintiff. Also, consider that CBS will be running up their own costs defending the case.That alone makes even a weak case some type of value. I'd be surprised if CBS has an across the board policy of never settling these cases.
In this time prior to the judge's decision on the Motion to Dismiss, it is a good time for both parties to consider settling the case, unless one or both of them is certain of which way the judge will rule.
But even if I were "certain", it would be prudent to at least explore the possibility. The only real certainty is that one of the parties is going to lose. If it's CBS, then this case automatically becomes much more valuable because CBS can't afford to let this case get before a jury. At that point anything could happen.
I also think that if they have not already done so, they will file a lawsuit against Abdin for something if their Motion is not granted and the case allowed to proceed.
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If that's what he did — and his attorneys suborned this — I can't think of much that's more professionally irresponsible than filing evidence in court that hadn't been thoroughly checked. Since CBS pretty much picked it apart.
Anas Abdin is penny ante; he himself poses little threat. Seriously. His lawyers already conceded he's ineligible for statutory damages because he waited too long to register his copyright. Given he's not yet finished the actual game, there's little in the way of actual damages he'd be able to recover.
What matters is that Star Trek is a multi-billion-dollar franchise. CBS cannot allow the purity of its IP to be muddied by anyone else in the future who tries what Abdin is trying now. It's worth the money CBS is spending on it. A settlement on such a weak case would only encourage similar actions in the future. I think Abdin's lawyers are thinking like you are but if the Axanar case proved anything it's that it's willing to go the distance to protect Star Trek.
While a countersuit is possible should the case not survive the motion to dismiss, there's not a lot of grounds to win on there. At best, it's just a way to make it increasingly more expensive for Abdin to pursue the case. That can't make it worth it for his lawyers, who are likely working on contingency and are likely to be found ineligible to seek fees as damages if Abdin were to win.
As ridiculously handled and without merit as this lawsuit is, CBS would have little to gain and much to lose by countersuing Abdin (if that ever even was under consideration). It really would look like the big corporation trampling on the little guy then, and they are already (unfairly and erroneously) getting accusations of that now from ignorant people with an existing agenda against the show despite simply defending the case. They can afford the legal fees, which are like change between the couch cushions to them, and any point they need to make about discouraging future frivolous lawsuits has already been made by vigorously defending themselves instead of just settling the case out of court.
Months ago, when I first read about this, I commented that while I felt that it was very implausible that anyone at CBS had even heard of this obscure indie creator's game, let alone decided to base their entire show on it, I did feel a little bad for Abdin, just because it's got to suck to put your time and effort into something and then someone else comes out with a product that gives your work the appearance of being derivative. I remain convinced that the tardigrade thing is mere coincidence, but any sympathy I had for Abdin has pretty much evaporated after seeing the way he and others have dishonestly attempted to manipulate and distort the facts to accommodate his plagiarism narrative.
This reminds me a lot of the lawsuit screenwriter Gary Goldman brought against Disney for allegedly ripping-off his script "Looney" for the movie Zootopia, even though they had almost nothing in common apart from the fact that they both involved anthropomorphic animals. The "Looney" screenplay was about an animator who hallucinates that his creations are real, which is obviously wildly different from Zootopia's plot, but Goldman cherry picked generic character traits and badly misrepresented the themes of both stories in an effort to make them seem more similar. The minutes from that case are kind of a fascinating read, but the bottom line is that the judge determined that any similarities were "few, random, and superficial" and threw the case out. It sure looks like Abdin's case has about as much chance of success.
This reminds me a lot of the lawsuit screenwriter Gary Goldman brought against Disney for allegedly ripping-off his script "Looney" for the movie Zootopia, even though they had almost nothing in common apart from the fact that they both involved anthropomorphic animals. The "Looney" screenplay was about an animator who hallucinates that his creations are real, which is obviously wildly different from Zootopia's plot, but Goldman cherry picked generic character traits and badly misrepresented the themes of both stories in an effort to make them seem more similar. The minutes from that case are kind of a fascinating read, but the bottom line is that the judge determined that any similarities were "few, random, and superficial" and threw the case out. It sure looks like Abdin's case has about as much chance of success.
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True but they have done it before. They got sued one by a photographer and CBS went and found a socil media post from years ago with a picture from Gunsmoke and countersued him for that. They got a lot of negaative press over it.
And there have been several appearances in Star Trek Online, a CBS licencee.
Including my cutie here <3
Oooo! How did you claim your little one? I was part of the tartigrade adoption program too but it finished and there was no follow-uoP?
You should have gotten an e-mail with a code
I don't know much about the Axanar case, but it's a lot easier to see why CBS would refuse to make enough of an offer to settle that case. They were the plaintiffs in that case weren't they? In addition, that case involved material that was owned completely by CBS. Correct if I'm wrong. But I can understand CBS digging in their heels on that case, from the little I know about that case.
Do we know if settlement discussions were undertaken prior to the Axanar case going to trial? Can't imagine the defendant not trying to get rid of that case prior to trial. But maybe he didn't have any money or insurance (if you can buy insurance for copyright infringement allegations).
Right, CBS would not even have to press their lawsuit. It would only be there to be used as leverage against Abdin's lawsuit.
On it's face, I agree, the case does not appear to be winnable or have much settlement value...yet. BTW can Abdin ask for punitive damages? I took a quick look at your website and didn't see anything about this.
CBS does still have incentive to settle this case if its not dismissed. Even if there is only a minimal amount of money Abdin can win, allowing the case to go to trial and losing, I think, would present as much incentive for additional actions like these, as settling the case would. There are any number of people who actually think Abdin has a good case. That notion would be infinitely bolstered by a plaintiff verdict.
That would not only invite anyone who thinks they came up with the idea of a spinning saucer section or whatever. to file lawsuits, it might also encourage them to take their little case to trial no matter how shitty it may look.These are all issues I think CBS will have to weigh.
BTW, I think your articles on this case are extremely well thought out and easy to understand.
If you knew anything about the defendent it is easy to see why he didn't want to get rid of the case. He's a complete narcissist who thinks he has rights to star trek property and could use it to build his own for-profit business and was not going to give that up under any circumstances and is still trying to make a business off axanar to this day.
These two articles sum up what happened with the Axanar case:
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