Aristocrat Chairman Neil Chatfield and CEO and Managing Director Trevor Croker have vowed to continue pursuing all avenues to protect the company’s intellectual property rights, an apparent reference to its ongoing legal dispute with Light & Wonder over the latter’s “Dragon Train” slot machine series.
The comments formed part of Aristocrat’s 2024 Annual Report, published Wednesday, following a year in which it booked revenues of AU$6.60 billion (US$4.11 billion) and profit of AU$1.30 billion (US$809 million).
According to Chatfield and Croker, the company’s strategy moving forward “remains grounded in a commitment to investment and innovation to create the world’s greatest gaming content at scale, and to pursue all avenues to rigorously protect our Intellectual Property (IP).
They added, “Throughout 2024, we maintained our focus on taking share in our most attractive opportunities across each vertical, while driving closer alignment and collaboration as we extract more operating leverage and other benefits from our scale.”
Aristocrat launched legal action in the US against Light & Wonder in March, alleging its rival had breached the company’s intellectual property with the release of “Dragon Train”. Specifically, Aristocrat claimed “Dragon Train” bore an uncanny similarity to its own “Dragon Link” series and accused it of misappropriating Aristocrat’s IP, imitating copyrighted audiovisual elements, copying game mechanics and gameplay, copyright infringement and deceptive trade practices.
In September, the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada granted Aristocrat a preliminary injunction temporarily prohibiting Light & Wonder from “any continued or planned sale, leasing, or other commercialization of Dragon Train”. In response, Light & Wonder began replacing “Dragon Train” units across the United States with other titles and stopped distributing further units of the series in other markets.
It also vowed to release a reworked of “Dragon Train” that addressed the specific IP concerns of the Nevada court. In a November update, Light & Wonder said it expects this new version to hit the market in “short order”.
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