Scientific Games faces second trademark suit

The latest court action centres around a new instant scratch game called ‘Spring Bling’, which allegedly utilises the dominant trademarked word ‘Bling’. The ‘Spring Bling’ game was developed by Scientific Games and released in April of this year by the New Mexico Lottery.

As in the previous legal challenge, Gameologist claims that it met with representatives of Scientific Games and signed a three year license agreement with MDI, a wholly owned subsidiary of Scientific Games, shortly after it developed the ‘Bling Bling’ scratch game and registered the ‘Bling Bling’ Mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The agreement covering the ‘Bling Bling’ trademark and the family of ‘Bling’ marks was signed in 2003. In a complaint filed with the New York Supreme Court, Gameologist claims that Scientific Games “pretended that it was not interested in the Mark, terminating the license agreement, only to utilise the Mark impermissibly without entering into a licensing agreement with Gameologist”.

Back in November 2008, Gameologist filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the New York Lottery and Scientific Games over a 'Bada Bling' instant scratch game that was released by the New York Lottery in December 2007.

Gameologist claimed that this was virtually an exact replica of its 'Bling Bling' game. "Gameologist plans to fully enforce and capitalize on its legal rights to the BLING mark," said Gameologist's lawyer, Craig Stuart Lanza of Balestriere Lanza.

"Once again, Scientific has wilfully infringed on the trademark rights of The Gameologist Group. This small company is due millions of dollars in damages under the Lanham Act for all of Scientific's clear infringements on the BLING Mark.

“We look forward to pushing both of these cases to trial to obtain justice for Gameologist, and to give large companies pause before they try stealing intellectual property developed by small, hard-working companies simply trying to pursue the American dream." Scientific Games have made no comment on this latest lawsuit.