A court dismissed one lawsuit against Activision Blizzard and Rockstar Games for alleged trademark infringement Call of Duty: Infinite Warfareclaiming that the plaintiff’s attorney evidently hasn’t played Call of Duty enough.
In November 2021, a company called Brooks Entertainment filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard and Rockstar Games, alleging that the two companies copied the likeness of the CEO of Brooks Entertainment – Shon Brooks – for the character of Sean Brooks in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
The lawsuit alleges that Brooks Entertainment “was in negotiations with Blizzard, Activision and Rockstar GamesInc. for making a game.” There were reportedly many “many meetings and emails” with people like Rockstar president Sam Houser, as well as Activision Blizzard Mobile chief creative Gordon Hall (deceased last year) and former Rockstar HR manager Sarah Shafer.
Brooks reportedly presented proposals for two different games to Activision Blizzard and Rockstar. One of them, titled Save One Bank, features a fictionalized version of Shon Brooks who “has missiles”, “has unlimited resources”, “navigates action-packed and exotic locations” and has “scripted battle scenes that take place in a high-end mall.” According to the lawsuit, Activision and Rockstar copied these ideas for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and its “main character,” Sean Brooks.
Actually, as you well know, Rockstar has no connection with Call of Duty as the series is only published by Activision Blizzard. Sean Brooks is also not the protagonist of the game. Finally, yes, there is a battle in a mall, but it looks nothing like the description in the lawsuit. Simply put, the lawsuit doesn’t make any sense.
In a motion filed in March 2022, the Activision attorney argued that it is “immediately apparent that plaintiff’s attorney could not have played Infinite Warfare (or any other Call of Duty game, for that matter) and at the same time filed the complaint in good faith.” Activision argued that the lawsuit was frivolous to the point of requiring fines – or fines against the attorney who filed the lawsuit – under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires that “factual claims have evidentiary”.
Brooks objected to those penalties, saying Article 11 doesn’t require a lawyer to play the full six hours of the Call of Duty campaign. The judge in the case, however, disagreed, stating that Brooks’ attorney “could have as easily verified these facts before filing a baseless complaint, just as the Court easily verified them in the first hour and half game”. They were ordered to reimburse Activision Blizzard’s attorney fees and court costs.
