Background
Upper Deck, the trading card company, sued game designer Ryan Miller and Ravensburger North America in December 2023, alleging copyright infringement over the wildly successful Disney Lorcana trading card game. Upper Deck claimed that Miller — who had previously pitched an unreleased card game concept called “Rush of Ikorr” to Upper Deck — copied elements of that concept when he later developed Lorcana for Ravensburger and Disney. Lorcana launched in 2023 and rapidly became one of the best-selling trading card games in the world.
The district court dismissed Upper Deck’s copyright claims against Ravensburger, finding no viable infringement theory based on the comparison of the protected expression in Upper Deck’s unproduced game concept with the final Lorcana product. Upper Deck separately settled its claims against Miller personally for $39,000. Ravensburger then moved for attorney fees under 17 U.S.C. § 505, the Copyright Act’s fee-shifting provision, seeking approximately $3.8 million — the cost it incurred defending the suit.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Kymberly Evanson denied Ravensburger’s fee motion on June 11, 2026. Under the Supreme Court’s framework from Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons (2016), courts consider whether the losing party’s claims were frivolous or objectively unreasonable, as well as deterrence, compensation, and other equitable factors. Judge Evanson found that Upper Deck’s suit, though ultimately unsuccessful, was “neither unreasonable nor frivolous.”
The court’s denial reflects a recurring pattern in copyright fee disputes: a plaintiff whose claims fail on the merits is not automatically a fee-award target. The Copyright Act’s fee provision is not a one-way ratchet; it allows fee awards to prevailing plaintiffs and defendants alike, but courts apply it selectively to deter objectively unreasonable litigation, not to punish good-faith but unsuccessful claims. Upper Deck’s theory — that a game designer who pitched a concept to one company then used ideas from that pitch in a competing product — was legally cognizable even if the specific expression comparison failed at the pleading stage.
Key Takeaways
- Losing a copyright case does not mean automatic fee exposure — courts apply § 505 to deter frivolous or objectively unreasonable litigation, not to punish good-faith claims that simply fail on the merits.
- The “neither unreasonable nor frivolous” standard from Kirtsaeng protects plaintiffs who bring colorable copyright claims even when those claims ultimately fail, particularly where the creative-expression comparison is genuinely disputed.
- Ravensburger spent approximately $3.8 million defending this case and received no fee reimbursement — a reminder that defending even ultimately dismissed copyright suits involves substantial cost and risk.
- The $39,000 Miller settlement suggests Upper Deck may have had a stronger direct claim against the individual designer than against the corporate publisher — a common pattern where corporate infringement claims are harder to sustain than direct-misappropriation theories against individuals.
Why It Matters
The dispute over Lorcana touched on a recurring tension in entertainment and game IP: when an outside creator pitches an idea to a company, then later creates something similar for a competitor, where does inspiration end and misappropriation begin? Copyright law protects expression, not ideas — so even if Miller carried conceptual DNA from “Rush of Ikorr” into Lorcana, Upper Deck needed to show that the specific protected expression was copied, a higher bar. The fee denial preserves space for rights holders to test those theories in court without facing automatic financial ruin if they lose.
For the booming trading card game industry — in which Lorcana, Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and newer entrants compete intensely — the case is a signal that courts will not reflexively penalize IP enforcement efforts against blockbuster franchise products, even when those efforts fail. The real deterrence mechanism is the $39,000 individual settlement, not the court’s fee denial: companies and individuals who discuss unreleased creative concepts with potential publishers take on relationship risk that can lead to costly litigation regardless of the ultimate legal outcome.