Unseen lawsuits

What BattleTech fans have come to summarily refer to as the Unseen lawsuits were several different lawsuits in the United States concerning the Intellectual Property (IP) rights for mecha designs that were used to represent various BattleMechs. FASA Corporation had licensed the rights to these pre-existing designs in 1984 for use in their upcoming board game that was going to be BattleTech, but the validity of their license was later challenged by competitors. The situation culminated in a 1997 settlement agreement by which FASA agreed to discontinue the use of certain mecha designs. In BattleTech, these became the "Unseen" - they remained part of the BattleTech universe and could be mentioned and referenced, but they would not feature in any visual form fortwith; any art featuring them was removed.

The issue was eventually revisited in another lawsuit in 2017 (long after FASA had ceased active operations) that, while also ending in a settlement agreement, had a much more favorable outcome for BattleTech.

Background

The Japanese anime series

The designs at the core of the issue date back to several Japanese anime TV shows from the early 1980s:

• Crusher Joe was a novel series by Haruka Takachiho that had existed since 1977 and for which an animated film was made in 1983. Besides being a science fiction author, Haruka Takachiho was notably also a a graphic designer (of mecha) and a founding member of Studio Nue.
• Fang of the Sun Dougram by Nippon Sunrise studio aired in 75 episodes from 1981 to 1983.
• Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the first TV series in the Macross franchise, aired from 1982 to 1983 with 36 episodes. Studio Nue had contributed mecha designs for the show; other co-founders were Big West Advertising (financing) and Artland Inc. (animation). Artland was soon replaced by producer Tatsunoku Production as the prime contractor for the animation.

Going with these shows, toy models were produced by Nippon Sunrise, Takara and Nitto for the former two and by Arii, Imai and Nichimo for the latter. There were also (at least) two companies in the United States importing and reboxing these existing toy miniatures: Testors worked with Nichimo and Revell worked with Takara, allowing both companies to import Macross models and sell them under the R.O.B.O.T. and Robotech toy line names, respectively.

Inception of BattleTech

In 1984, after the TV shows had been discontinued, producers in Japan had a surplus of miniatures for them that they wanted to sell. American model kit import company Twentieth Century Imports saw an opportunity to import these for the United States market. It was at the Annual Trade Show of the Hobby Industries of America in Anaheim, California in early 1984 that FASA co-founders Jordan Weisman and Ross Babcock took notice when they saw the miniatures at the TCI booth. Weisman liked the models very much and offered to buy a large number if the seller (TCI) would grant permission to use them as playing pieces in a game, which they did after conferring with "the original studio" (Weisman did not name the studio in the interview; he might have referred to Studio Nue, but according to court documents TCI claimed they acquired the rights from Tatsunoku.)

This led to the creation and release of Battledroids by FASA in the same year, which contained two of the TCI-imported models as playing pieces. Due to the success of the game, which was renamed to BattleTech in 1985, more and more Battledroids/BattleMechs were created for the game from existing models that were imported by TCI (and the models sold as game supplementals; see TCI Model Sets) as the game was expanded with products such as CityTech and Technical Readout: 3025. However, as only a limited number of mecha designs were available, FASA started to produce new designs in-house. They also switched from using imported plastic model kits to pewter miniatures produced by Ral Partha, including metal versions of the imported Japanese mecha designs.

Robotech

Meanwhile, Harmony Gold USA in association with Tatsunoku Production created a TV show for the US market that was adapted from three original and distinct, though visually similar, Japanese anime television series, combining Super Dimension Fortress Macross with Southern Cross and Mospeada. They found that Revell already had a Robotech Defenders line of scale model kits that included the transformable Macross mecha. The potential for brand confusion caused concern that Harmony Gold would have problems selling its own transformable toys. Harmony Gold and Revell were able to come to a co-licensing agreement to use Revell's pre-existing Robotech name and logo to strengthen the title's brand recognition. Thus the show became Robotech. It first aired in 1985, and had comics, toys and model kits going with it.

In January 1985 Harmony Gold contacted FASA regarding FASA's use of Japanese mecha images, specifically the Valkyrie, Destroid, Glaug and Regult designs from Robotech. They demanded FASA stop using all Macross designs or face a copyright infringement and unfair competition suit. This was followed by multiple cease-and-desist letters but Harmony Gold did not take any official legal action and FASA continued to use the images in question because of the license they had obtained from TCI.

In 1991, Tatsunoko granted Harmony Gold the "exclusive and irrevocable right(s)" to the three Macross series used in the creation of Robotech, for a period of (initially) 10 years that was repeatedly extended since.

Exosquad

By 1991, Playmates Toys was looking for a robot-themed toy line and was reviewing prominent properties, including a BattleTech pitch. In the following year, after investigating BattleTech further, Playmates suggested a BattleTech animated cartoon series to promote the potential toy line. But when Playmates contacted Japanese company Takara about the potential toy line, Takara dismissed the BattleMech designs as copies of robot designs previously marketed in Japan. Playmates lost interest in BattleTech and focused on another line, Exosquad (or Exo-Squad), where the robotic vehicles were named E-Frames, with a TV show launching in 1993.

When Playmates rejected the BattleTech line, FASA turned to Tyco Toys instead and worked out a licensing agreement in early 1993. But Tyco Toys backed out of the agreement when they saw Playmates' Exosquad display at the 1993 Toy Fair with the "Heavy Attack E-Frame" featuring as the centerpiece which bore a strong similarity to the Timber Wolf (Mad Cat) 'Mech, an original BattleTech design. When FASA sued Playmates over this, Tyco re-opened negotiations which would lead to the creation of a BattleTech TV show (aka the Somerset Strikers) in 1994 and an accompanying line of BattleTech toys.

1990s Lawsuits

Having lost the deal with Tyco Toys because of Exosquad which appeared to employ copies or derivatives of original BattleMechs as E-Frames, FASA sued Playmates over copyright infringement, alleging that seven original 'Mech designs - the Bushwacker, Dire Wolf (Daishi), Fire Moth (Dasher), King Crab, Mist Lynx (Koshi), Nova (Black Hawk), and Timber Wolf (Mad Cat) - plus the Elemental battle armor from BattleTech had been copied or otherwise used in the creation of Exosquad E-Frames.

In 1994, Playmates Toys licensed Robotech from Harmony Gold USA. As part of their agreement, Playmates Toys was given the right to sue FASA over the Robotech copyright which had been a contentious issue between FASA and Harmony Gold before, but not been litigated. Playmates would go on to resurrect the original Matchbox line of Robotech toys in 1995, reissuing them as a sub-line of the existing Exosquad line. On behalf of Harmony Gold USA, Playmates filed its own suit against FASA over their use of the Macross designs in 1994 and moved to reassign and consolidate it with the FASA vs. Playmates case. When that motion was denied, Harmony Gold and Playmates voluntarily dismissed it and then refiled it in the United States District Court for the Central District of California (Harmony Gold U.S.A., Inc. et al. v. FASA Corp., et al., No. 95-0391 HLH, N.D.Cal. January 13, 1995). The California Court then granted FASA's motion to transfer the action back to Illinois in June of 1995.

In FASA vs. Playmates Toys, the court ruled in favor of Playmates in 1996. It confirmed that the 'Mech designs in question were indeed protected designs under FASA's copyright, but found that the Exosquad toy line did not infringe on that copyright. Regarding the Elemental suit, the court found it "substantially similar to various preexisting works and [not having] the requisite incremental originality to be protected by FASA's copyright registrations." However, FASA was not required to pay damages nor Playmates' extensive legal fees that, according to Playmates, exceeded 2.5 million US$. Playmates appealed the decision in 1997 in an attempt to recoup their legal fees from FASA, but the ruling was upheld.

In the Harmony Gold vs. FASA suit, Harmony Gold provided over 25,000 pages of documentation during the discovery phase. FASA cited three of these documents in their response, leading to Harmony Gold to (unsuccessfully) attempt to pull them from the case under attorney-client-privilege because their attorneys had allegedly mistakenly included them. Apparently, the documents revealed that on January 15, 1984, Tatsunoko Production Company had granted Harmony Gold a license to market products based on all of the Macross designs except for Japanese plastic model kits, which were explicitly excluded from the license. Consequently, FASA argued that Harmony Gold lacked standing to bring the lawsuit but the court rejected this argument because FASA's use of the contested designs was not limited to model kits. This left the key question in the case wether TCI had actually been in a legal position to properly grant the rights to the mecha images to FASA.

There was never a court ruling on that question though. Instead, the parties ended the case with a settlement agreement in 1997 that contained a non-disclosure clause.

See also

• Unseen: A History of FASA, Battledroids and BattleTech
• PCGamesN: "How anime landed BattleTech and the MechWarrior games in legal trouble" (10 October 2017)
• Matt Chat #314 interview with Jordan Weisman on YouTube, 2016
• Catalyst Game Labs Tuesday Newsday Ep. 27 interview with Jordan Weisman, September 2024