Patent Suit Against Caesars Entertainment Corp, MGM Others Dismissed

Case 3:12-cv-00741-CWR-FKB Document 76 Filed 10/23/13: A patent infringement lawsuit filed by MGT Gaming late last year against MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment Corporation, and Penn National Gaming, Inc. has been dismissed in a Mississippi District Court.  

Last year at this time, MGT was a company with only one operating unit, legacy medical technology business Medicsight, which the company has subsequently sold.  Today they are in the business of online and mobile gaming along with fantasy sports.

The initial lawsuit was filed in December of last year.  It contended that WMS Defendants and the Aruze Defendants alleging that they infringed United States Patent 7,892,088 (“the ‘088 patent”).  The ‘088 patent is “directed to a gaming system in which a second game played on an interactive sign is triggered once a specific event occurs in a first game, e.g., a slot machine.”  Docket No. 19 (“MGT Complaint”), at ¶ 7.  Plaintiff alleges that the “defendants either manufacture and sell gaming systems in violation of plaintiff’s patent rights or operate casinos that offer such gaming systems.”

More specifically, MGT asserted that the named defendants “have infringed and continue to infringe at least claims 1-3 and 6 of the ‘088 patent, either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents.”

The Defendants’ filed a Motion to Dismiss, and on Thursday, that motion was granted, “in part with respect to the claims of contributory and induced infringement and denied with respect to the claim of direct infringement.”

WMS Gaming and Aruze were also named as defendants.

Docket No. 38, MGT Resp. to WMS Gaming, at 22.  MGT also acknowledged on rebuttal that it did not have the necessary facts to establish a claim for Contributory infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(c) and agreed to remove that allegation from its pleadings until discovery produced facts that would allow it to make this claim.

Given these concessions, the claims for induced and contributory infringement were dismissed without prejudice.

The Plaintiff’s claims against Casino Defendants was stayed pending the outcome of the litigation against WMS and Aruze because the claims against the Casino Defendants are peripheral to this suit. 

- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com