Cryptocats summoned to court for resemblance to basketball star

Startup Starcoin filed a lawsuit in May against Axiom Zen, the maker of the game CryptoKitties, accusing the company of stealing trade secrets and violating a confidentiality agreement by creating a crypto kitty that resembled basketball star Steph Curry.

In a July 9 ruling, U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino denied cryptocurrency space startup Starcoin's request for a preliminary injunction against Axiom Zen's use of the star crypto cat, and the court found that the plaintiff did not sufficiently make the case to prevail on the merits.

Starcoin, which does business under the trade name Tradestar, accuses Axiom Zen of stealing his idea to produce digital collectible heroes similar to on celebrities.

CryptoKitties, the most popular game on the Ethereum network, allows users to buy, sell and create unique digital cats. The decentralized application recently released a series of cats resembling Steph Curry, an American professional basketball player for the National Basketball Association.

The plaintiff claimed that the idea to sell Steph Cats was stolen from Tradestar, despite the fact that Axiom Zen entered into a partnership with Curry a month before Tradestar appeared with its lawsuit.

The court records indicate that Judge Sammartino was skeptical of the request to ban Axiom Zen from using celebrity likenesses to promote the product. 

Responding to such a request from the plaintiff’s lawyer, the judge said:

“I don’t understand how such use can be a trade secret, everyone does it. Everyone is using Mr. Curry for advertising.

Commenting on the court ruling, Sam Gharegozlu, president of Axiom Zen, said he was confident that the court would dismiss the baseless lawsuit.

“This trial, like plagiarism or scandalous press, shows that we are doing well.”