GF9’s effort to maintain its license appears to have been successful. "We are pleased to confirm that we have reached an amicable resolution with Wizards of the Coast," a spokesperson for GF9 said in a statement to ICv2. "Our ongoing partnership for Dungeons & Dragons will continue and more news will follow at a later date."
The settlement came after an initial ruling favorable to Wizards of the Coast. The ruling was on GF9’s request for a restraining order that would prevent WotC from terminating GF9’s licenses. In a report to the court, a federal magistrate judge recommended against granting the restraining order. He noted that GF9 had failed to clearly show that it was likely to suffer irreparable harm if the order wasn’t granted, or that there was "a likelihood" that the case would succeed on the merits. The court adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendations and denied the restraining order. The case could have proceeded to trial, but the parties settled in under three months from filing without discovery or other expensive pre-trial activities, and are continuing the relationship.
This is the second dispute between WotC and its licensees settled in recent weeks; WotC also recently settled a suit filed by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman over their license to produce Classic Dragonlance novels (see "Weis and Hickman Announce New Series").
