Pelican Accessories Sues Mad Catz for Theft of Trade Secrets and Seeks Injunction

Market Wire, 20050229

Pelican Accessories, a developer of video game peripherals, filed suit on February 10, 2003 in Los Angeles Superior Court against competing peripheral developer Mad Catz alleging that Mad Catz conspired with cheat code content provider Fire International to misappropriate Pelican Accessories' proprietary game enhancement encryption codes. The suit also charges Mad Catz and Fire with conspiracy to defraud Pelican Accessories in connection with Mad Catz' recent acquisition of the GAME SHARK trademark from Interact.

Pelican Accessories' Complaint presents a laundry list of claims against Mad Catz, Fire International and its principal shareholder, Jason Cooper, for a series of " bad acts." According to the Complaint, Fire and Pelican Accessories participated in a joint venture for over two years in connection with the promotion and development of the CODEBREAKER line of game enhancement products in the United States. Using confidential information it gained from its fiduciary relationship with Pelican Accessories, Fire is alleged to have disclosed confidential bid information to Mad Catz, thereby allowing it to become the successful bidder for the GAME SHARK trademark. In addition, the suit alleges that Mad Catz and Fire had been negotiating "under the table" for months while Fire was representing to Pelican Accessories that the business relationship between Fire and Pelican was solid and exclusive.

Chris Richards, Pelican Accessories' President, declined to comment further on the details of the serious allegations leveled at Mad Catz and Fire in the Complaint. However, Mr. Richards did say that Pelican Accessories would soon be filing a Motion for Preliminary Injunction to stop Mad Catz from introducing its GAME SHARK line of products based upon trade secrets misappropriated from Pelican. Mr. Richards also pointed out that retailers who decide to risk carrying the new GAME SHARK products containing proprietary trade secrets from Pelican Accessories may be asked to remove those products from their shelves in the near future.

As far as new content for CODEBREAKER PRODUCTS, Chris Richards reported that Pelican Accessories has already created its own in-house content development group, which will exponentially increase its speed to market with new CODEBREAKER products. Richards added that the unprecedented level of unethical behavior by Mad Catz and Fire left Pelican with no alternative but to take this legal action. He said his company's Board of Directors is intent on exposing all the facts related to Mad Catz' interference with a two year joint venture between Fire and Pelican.

About Pelican Accessories

Pelican Accessories is the fastest growing video game peripherals company in the United States, providing a full line of accessories for all current and future video game platforms including Sega(R) Dreamcast, PlayStation(R), PlayStation(R)2, Nintendo(R) 64, Nintendo(R) GameCube(R), Game Boy(R) Color, Game Boy(R) Advance and Xbox(TM) from Microsoft. Product design, testing and research take place in the USA with the majority of manufacturing in Asia. Pelican Accessories is headquartered in Vernon, California.