Australia-based Imagination Entertainment, makers of the casual dice game Left Center Right, has prevailed in a trademark infringement case brought by Florida-based George & Company. The suit claimed that Imagination’s version of Left Center Right infringed upon George’s trademark claim to an earlier, similar game, LCR.

 

Citing that there was “no likelihood of confusion … between Imagination’s use of Left Center Right and George’s use of LCR,” the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. rejected George’s claim of copyright infringement, according to Courthouse News Service. The court also cited “the weakness of the LCR mark, the lack of similarities between the two marks, and the lack of predatory intent” as factors in the decision, which upheld a lower court’s ruling.

 

George & Company’s LCR came out in 1982; Imagination’s Left Center Right in 2007. Both games use a set of dice with the letters “L,” “C,” and “R,” on their sides. Each player starts with three chips and rolls three dice on his turn, passing chips to the player to his left or right or putting them in a central pot based on the rolls. The last player with chips is the winner. The game is getting increased traction in the hobby; it made ICv2’s Top 10 List of Board, Card, and Family Games for the first time for Q2 of 2009, as seen in ICv2 Guide to Games #68.