Ravensburger filed a motion to dismiss Upper Deck's lawsuit against them over the alleged theft of an Upper Deck game by game designer Ryan Miller that contributed to the creation of Disney Lorcana TCG.  The motion to dismiss was filed in U.S. Southern District Court of California and dated July 12, 2023.

Back in June 2023, Upper Deck filed suit against Miller and Ravensburger claiming that Miller breached his work-for-hire agreement related to his work on Rush of Ikorr, among other allegations, and Ravensburger used the materials they alleged that he pilfered to help create Disney Lorcana TCG (see "Upper Deck Sues").  Upper Deck used this as the basis to ask for an injunction to prevent release of Disney Lorcana TCG, which was looking like it was going to be one of the biggest TCG releases of 2023 (see "Different Brand of TCG Magic Makes its Debut").  Ravensburger responded to the allegations saying that the claims were "baseless" (see "Response to Upper Deck Suit").

The basis of the motion to dismiss is multi-faceted.  The initial rebuttal claims that the Disney Lorcana TCG was in the works prior to Miller's involvement with Ravensburger.  However, the core grounds to dismiss this case lie in the assertion that Upper Deck was unable to establish personal jurisdiction over two non-California resident defendants under Rule 12(b)(2).  This boils down to the court's jurisdiction, in California, not being sufficiently established to rule on complaints against the two defendants, which are both based in Washington state.

According to the motion, Miller had only visited Upper Deck for two days in California, prior to him signing the work-for-hire agreement. Ravensburger's relationship occurred with Miller in Washington, thus the alleged theft would have occurred in Washington and none of the alleged wrongdoing would have occurred in California.  Additionally, the motion attempts to establish that Miller and Upper Deck did not have a fiduciary relationship, as Miller was an independent contractor with a work-for-hire contract with the company.

"Ravensburger has an extremely strong case here, and we hope it will be dismissed outright based on today's motion," said Brian Lewis, Legal Advisor for Ravensburger.  "While we respect the valid intellectual property rights of others, this appears to be more of a PR stunt than a genuine legal dispute."

The motion to dismiss will be ruled on August 14, 2023 at 10:30 a.m. by Hon. M. James Lorenz, after Disney Lorcana's launch at Gen Con on August 5-9, 2023.