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The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is a yearly gaming convention and this year it will be held in Seattle, Washington, United States. The convention attracts 10's of thousands of people from all over the world. Like many conventions held such as Comic Con, other unofficially held events often take place at nearby venues due to the influx of people coming in for the event.

The Pokémon USA's main facility is located close by in Bellevue, Washington and the Nintendo of America Headquarters are located in Redmond, Washington. Nintendo will have a booth on the PAX show floor but no announced Pokémon games are being showcased at this years event.

For the past 4 years, an 'Annual Unofficial Poke'mon PAX Kickoff Party' was held for Pokémon fans. It is not associated with TPCi or PAX and was a separately held party. The 5th Annual Event was to take place at 500East, a social house that is a restaurant and bar, until TPCi served a lawsuit against the organizers claiming copyright infringement because their promotional poster which specifically states unofficial had pictures of Pikachu and Snivy. The lawsuit was was filed at the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Washington on Wednesday, August 26th, 2015. As a result of the lawsuit, the event was canceled.

The defendants in this lawsuit are Ramar Larkin Jones and Zach Shore. As of a Facebook post dated August 11th, 2015, over 30 tickets for the event had been sold costing $2 USD but the event but eventually it was listed that the event had sold out. The event poster though says that there was "no cover all night". The Pokémon Company International though is seeking extensive damages against the organizers of the event though including higher range statutory damages, funds collected from the event and TPCi legal fees.

The lawsuit states: "Defendants have copied, created derivative works of, distributed copies to the public, and/or displayed publicly Pokémon Works without the consent or authority of TPCi, thereby directly infringing TPCi’s exclusive rights under Section 106 of the Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. § 106."

Jacob Demmitt, GeekWire staff reporter contacted a lawyer representing The Pokémon Company International in this case to determine if they plan to continue to pursue the case even though as a result of the lawsuit, the event didn't take place, but the lawyer declined to comment until he could communicate with their client regarding the matter.

Lawsuit Document

Sources: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/pokemon-sues-fans-to-block-pokemon-party-on-eve-of-pax-game-convention-in-seattle/, http://prime.paxsite.com/what-is-pax

It seems from this lawsuit, although its not actually stated in the documents, that The Pokemon Company International actually objected to the fact that the event was being held at a bar that serves alcohol and that they didn't like the fact that they were collecting money from ticket sales. It appears to me that they disguised their actual objections to the event under the guise of copyright infringement where they actually had legal ground to pursue and get the event stopped. The proximity of the event to Pokemon USA and NoA HQ I think also played a roll in the launch of this lawsuit.

It's unlikely that they were making that much money from this event and were merely to help cover their expenses but from a business point of view, TPCi are required to protect their trademarks. It is unfortunate though that they went to such an extreme and filed a lawsuit.

The way this lawsuit is worded though is quite troubling for fans as TPCi could just sue someone for using any Pokemon image or Pokemon likeness being used unofficially if they don't like how it's being used. Not certain why they didn't first do a Cease and Desist instead, perhaps they did and it was ignored?

Wow, it sounds pretty shocking that The Pokemon Company would sue over an event held by fans that only serves to promote the franchise, especially one that's clearly not trying to pass itself off as being an official event in any way. But I can understand Sunain's point about it being held at a bar selling alcohol - that's certainly not an image The Pokemon Company or Nintendo would like associated with their products. It's just a shame that this might discourage other fans from holding their own gatherings or meetups out of fear of being dragged to court.

So a follow up article states that there was no Cease and Desist letter so that's a bit odd that they'd go directly to the lawsuit. It's now possible that a copyright lawyer for TPCi was the one that initiated this lawsuit to protect copyright and not TPCi itself. We're still awaiting to hear from a TPCi representative regarding this matter.