US judge delays mobile gambling patent trial for criminal investigation

Firy

28/11/2023 21:24

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      Patent adversary accused AviaGames of defrauding players
    

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      Judge delays pending trial based on New Jersey
investigation
    

  
    By Blake Brittain
       Nov 28 (Reuters) - A federal judge in California has
delayed a patent case brought by mobile-gaming platform Skillz
Inc  SKLZ.N  against rival AviaGames, citing a criminal
investigation into AviaGames' alleged misuse of non-human "bots"
in its money games.
    In an order made public on Monday, U.S. District Judge Beth
Labson Freeman pushed back a trial that was set to begin next
week. The judge said AviaGames had been subpoenaed by New Jersey
federal prosecutors as part of a grand jury's probe into
allegations that the company secretly used bot competitors to
manipulate cash games that were advertised as having only human
players.
    AviaGames has denied using bots to rig its games. Attorneys
for the company did not immediately respond to a request for
comment on Tuesday. 
    Skillz attorney Lazar Raynal of King & Spalding said on
Tuesday that it was "not surprising that the judge decided to
give AviaGames a little more time to shore up their criminal
defense counsel, given the ongoing criminal investigation."
    The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey
declined to comment. 
    Skillz first sued California-based AviaGames for patent
infringement in 2021, alleging that its Pocket7Games app was a
"copycat" of Skillz's mobile-gaming platform.
    Las Vegas-based Skillz told the court in August that it had
learned during the discovery process that AviaGames used bots to
"rig" its cash games and that its executives lied to the court
about them.
    AviaGames countered in a court filing that Skillz "engages
in the exact conduct it falsely accuses AviaGames of carrying
out." 
    AviaGames and its executives Vickie Chen and Peng Zhang have
since retained criminal defense attorneys to represent them in
the Skillz case, in a rare development for a patent case. 
    According to the Monday order, AviaGames told the court last
month that it had received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S.
Attorney's office in New Jersey for documents related to the
fraud allegations.
    Freeman said in the order that she would delay the trial
until February to give AviaGames' attorneys more time to prepare
in light of the office's pending investigation. 
    AviaGames was hit with a separate proposed class-action
lawsuit in California court earlier this month by gamers who
accused the company of committing fraud and racketeering by
using bots to covertly tilt games like blackjack, solitaire and
virtual pool in its favor.
    
    The case is Skillz Platform Inc v. AviaGames Inc, U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of California, No.
5:21-cv-02436.
    For Skillz: Lazar Raynal, Chris Campbell, Jennifer Stewart,
Brit Davis and Brian Eutermoser of King & Spalding
    For AviaGames: Wendy Wang, Miguel Bombach, Jerry Riedinger
and Judy Jennison of Perkins Coie; Andrea Jeffries and Sarah
Conway of Jones Day