Gargantuan Chinese gaming publisher, Tencent, is yet again battling it out in court with Mobile Legends: Bang Bang's developer, Shanghai Moonton Technology. This time, Moonton alleges that Tencent has infringed on its Mobile Legends IP, which may sound eerily familiar, and continues a long line of issues involving Tencent, which includes System Shock 3 remaining in a limbo status.
In 2017, Riot Games, now a subsidiary of Tencent, took Moonton to court alleging that the Chinese developer intentionally infringed on its League of Legends IP. Around that time, Moonton's MOBA Mobile Legends first saw the light of day, making Riot Games' allegations appear to hold more weight. Since then, Tencent and Moonton have engaged in several battles for supremacy with the latest shots coming from Moonton's legal artillery.
According to the South China Morning Post, Moonton is suing Tencent for violations regarding IP infringement of its flagship game, Mobile Legends. Unlike previous cases, this has reportedly been scheduled for this week in the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, with the result possibly giving one of the gaming companies a huge leg up in this years-long battle.
This suit is not only the latest battle between Moonton and Tencent, however, but also the start of a battle with the maker of TikTok, ByteDance. ByteDance recently acquired Moonton for the equivalent of 4 Billion US Dollars, outbidding Tencent which was eager to win following the huge success of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang in southern Asia. This was just one of many companies Tencent was looking to acquire, which reportedly includes Ubisoft.
While this latest suit is just starting up in China, Riot Games' most recent suit in the US has come to a swift close. Following up on its 2017 suit, Riot Games went after Moonton again for IP infringement in May of this year. According to the initial filing, Riot alleges that Moonton was "continuing its deliberate and sustained campaign to free ride on Riot’s highly valuable rights in the mobile video game League of Legends: Wild Rift (“Wild Rift”) and related content."
On November 8, an official ruling for the suit filed in May came down from the Los Angeles federal court. The final ruling boils down to there not being many major differences between it and Riot's lawsuit in 2017. The judge made mention that the parent company, Tencent, is currently in proceedings for near identical suits in China and other countries against Moonton, with what appears to be an aim of monopolizing the global market versus allowing for any competition.