An article concerning litigation between industry giant Apple Inc. and Epic Games Inc., written by our Legal Consultant, Michael Davies, was recently published in the Cyprus Mail. In his article Michael outlines the arguments which underpin the dispute. It may be viewed in full by following this link. Subsequent to its submission, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez issued a temporary ruling on 24 August 2020 which is generally favourable to Apple. In it she allowed Apple, for the time being, to continue to block sales of Epic Games’ popular video game ‘Fortnite’ from its App Store. Things are not all going Apple’s way, however, since in the same temporary ruling she also prevented Apple from following up on its threat to terminate Epic Games’ developer account and from compromising its graphic tool ‘Unreal Engine’ which is used extensively by third party games developers. In her words “Epic Games and Apple are at liberty to litigate against each other, but their dispute should not create havoc to bystanders.” A comment which will be supported by Microsoft, which backed Epic Games in the filing, and a host of independent games developers.
The full hearing of the dispute is scheduled to commence on 28 September 2020. We await its findings with interest!
For information on this story please speak with your usual contact at Elias Neocleous & Co LLC.