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Spry Fox's Triple Town triumph sees studio pick up Yeti Town IP

Details of 6waves settlement emerge

Spry Fox's Triple Town triumph sees studio pick up Yeti Town IP
Spry Fox has announced that it received ownership of the Yeti Town IP as part of the out-of-court settlement reached with publisher 6waves last week.

"We have amicably settled our lawsuit with 6waves. We are very happy with the outcome and glad to be finished with this matter," explained Spry Fox CEO David Edery, posting on his blog.

"The full terms of the settlement are confidential, but I can disclose that as a consequence of the settlement, ownership of the Yeti Town IP has been transferred to Spry Fox."

As expected, Yeti Town has now been pulled from sale.

Some context

This suit, launched by Spry Fox in January 2012, alleged that 6waves' Yeti Town was little more than a barely-disguised clone of Spry Fox's Triple Town.

What's more, since Spry Fox had approached 6waves to publish Triple Town to iOS – and given the company early access to the game through a closed beta – Edery came to believe that 6waves had used confidential information to build its clone and beat Triple Town to market.

"It's bad enough to rip off another company," said David Edery when his company filed the complaint. "To do so while you are pumping them for private information […] is profoundly unethical by any measure."

In the beginning

Indeed, while the conclusion may have been amicable, its beginnings certainly were not.

"Unfortunately, it is our opinion that 6waves has behaved in a reprehensible and illegal manner, and we can not, in good conscience, ignore it," explained Edery at the time.

"Yeti Town, as launched by 6waves, was a nearly perfect copy of Triple Town. We're talking about tons of little details, from the language in the tutorial, to many of our UI elements, to the quantities and prices of every single item in the store."

U-turn

For its part, 6waves Lolapps (as it was then known), seemed supremely confident that its actions had been entirely above board.

"Lolapps is disappointed that David Edery has chosen to file a lawsuit, and believes his claims are factually inaccurate," read the company's statement.

"We respect others IP and did nothing to violate any contracts our team had in place. The copyright infringement claims are unjustified."
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PocketGamer.biz's news editor 2012-2013