Supercell to pay $8.5 million over patent dispute with F2P dev Gree

A patent dispute between two mobile developers has ended in a Texas court ordering Tencent subsidiary Supercell to pay $8.5 million to the Japanese dev Gree for what a jury found to be “willful” infringement of Gree’s patents.

According to Bloomberg, Gree accused Supercell and its mobile game Clash of Clans of infringing on several of its patents relating to Gree’s freemium games, particularly ones surrounding how downloadable games are controlled and presented to players, some visual effect enhancements, and in-game purchases & inter-player object transfers are controlled. 

The jury ultimately found that Supercell infringed on found of Gree’s patents, and rejected Supercell’s arguments that the patents themselves weren’t valid. So far, that means Supercell has been ordered to pay Gree $8.5 million to cover past and future sales from infringing games. The sum is ultimately less than Gree was asking for, but Bloomberg notes that the District Court Judge could up to triple that amount due to the fact that the jury found Supercell’s infringement to be “willful.”