Chapter 179

On Sunday, April 5, Fang Zhe, who finally took time to exercise in the gym, received an emergency call from his secretary Li Wen.

"Huizhong's office in Silicon Valley in the United States received a subpoena from the San Francisco court. The American game company named vilster sued Huizhong's happyfarmville, which operates in the United States and overseas, for allegedly copying a farm game of their company."

Fang zhe didn't expect that this company would move so quickly. According to the previous plans and opinions put forward by the legal department, Huizhong is going to send someone to communicate with them and try to resolve the dispute peacefully. After all, no company is willing to go to court to file a lawsuit. It takes time and effort to file a lawsuit, and won such a company whose name has never been heard of, Huizhong couldn't get any benefits. Unexpectedly, people directly sued them before they were sent out.

"Contact Mr. Zheng and Mr. Li, as well as Li Chen and the relevant personnel in charge of the dispute, to have a meeting in the company's large conference room at 3 p.m. this afternoon." in case of such an emergency, Fang Zhe is too lazy to care about such small details as this weekend.

Fang zhe hung up Li Wen and called Li Chen to inquire about the progress of the legal department in dealing with the dispute.

To tell the truth, as a non legal professional, Fang zhe doesn't know very well in his heart. This small company called vilster has the courage to sue Huizhong. They should know whether Huizhong copied this game. Huizhong should have all kinds of things, whether it's game code or game material copyright. In this case, The company couldn't see any chance of winning the lawsuit. Did they have a hole in their head when they did so?

Or for hype?

This is also a situation mentioned by the Ministry of justice. According to their investigation, this game company named vilster is only an unknown small company in San Francisco. It was established only in September last year. Although it is more than Huizhong for a month, the achievements and performance of the two companies are not the same.

In the eyes of Huizhong now, this company is simply a small company that doesn't enter the market. They sued Huizhong because the international version of Huizhong's happy farm caught fire in the United States and overseas areas. They want to attract attention and rub popularity.

In the afternoon, the big meeting room of Huizhong company.

Fang zhe frowned and confirmed it again to Li Chen, who was the second in his right hand: "do you mean that even if you help us testify in court in five minutes, we will have less than 50% victory?"

"Yes, this is indeed the case now. According to the information from the United States, the game materials, copyright materials and other game contents related to this company named welster were registered with relevant institutions in the United States in October last year, and we Huizhong released happy farm The international version was only registered in the United States at the end of November last year, and the game materials and other materials of the two companies do overlap to a certain extent, and the court may judge us to plagiarize. "Li Chen patiently explained to Fang zhe again.

The protection laws of the game industry in the United States are not as chaotic as those in China. If they lose this lawsuit, it is likely to cause the international version of happy farm to stop operating overseas. Such serious consequences are not frowned by Fang Zhe.

"Is there any news over there in five minutes?" Fang zhe turned to his secretary Li Wen.

"Not yet..." Li Wenhua was just halfway through, when the door of the conference room was suddenly pushed open, and a female employee in black and white professional ol clothes panted:

"President Fang, there is news from Jianghai branch. Five minutes may... May not help us testify in court!"

Everyone in the office looked at the female employee who had just opened the door. At this time, no one cared about her. As an ordinary employee, she broke into the conference room holding a high-level meeting without knocking. Everyone was surprised by the news she brought.

Fang zhe frowned slightly and didn't speak. The director of page you and Li Yifei, who had the most contact with him for five minutes, couldn't stand it. He questioned loudly:

"Why? Why don't they want to help us testify in court? I remember we mentioned relevant contents in the contract documents with them?"

"Five minutes ago, President Gao said that the overseas version of happy farm we signed with them was extremely unfair. He and the five minutes company did not recognize the legal validity of the contract!" the female lawyer who pushed the door gave an answer that surprised everyone present.

"How can they do this? How can this contract not have legal validity?" "that is, they are not white eyed wolves..."

Several senior officials in the conference room talked about it one after another.

Fang zhe knocked on the table with his pen and looked at Li Chen. Li Chen opened his mouth and explained:

"The validity of this document in China can be guaranteed, but it is hard to say abroad. If the five minute party dies and does not recognize it, the foreign court is likely to decide not to recognize the legal validity of our five minute contract."

With Li Chen's explanation, the discussion in the conference room became louder. It was a naked betrayal. Obviously, the five minute company betrayed Huizhong.

Zheng Siwen looked at Fang Zhe, suppressed the discussion in the conference room and asked Li Chen, "if they don't testify in court, how likely are we to win this lawsuit?"

"Maybe, less than 10%!" Li Chen said a probability that everyone here could not believe. Finally, he added:

"The main reason is that they registered the game information earlier than us, so they have a greater probability of winning than us."

Less than 10%, it is almost equal to losing the lawsuit. After losing the lawsuit, the international version of happy farm operated by Huizhong overseas must be stopped. Now, the international version of happy farm has accumulated more than 20 million users in overseas areas, bringing more than 40 million US dollars in revenue to Huizhong every month. If happy farm is stopped, Huizhong's revenue and performance will be improved, It's almost half cut. Such a loss is enough to break Huizhong's muscles and bones, and the development plan of the whole company in the next few years will be disrupted.

Each of the high-level leaders here showed a dignified look in varying degrees. Fang Zhe, with a frown, asked:

"Do you have any background information about this company called Vester, including its shareholder identity information and government relations?"

Li Chen opened the information, looked at it and said: "the company mainly has four shareholders, two of which are its founder and CTO. One is Evans, who worked in a game studio called black lightning in San Francisco and the other before he founded welster."

"Wait, do you say the name of the game studio is black lightning?" Fang zhe interrupted Li Chen and asked.

"Yes, yes!" Li Chen looked at Fang Zhe. Did the boss find something wrong?

"Does this studio have a shareholder named Pincus?" Fang zhe asked again.

Li Chen looked down, raised his head, nodded and said, "yes, there is a shareholder named Pincus, and he is also the largest individual shareholder of the studio."

Fang zhe leaned back, leaned back on his chair, his eyebrows relaxed, and the corners of his mouth tilted slightly. "Hum, it was Zynga's ghost? I said that such a clown came out, and he had no impression in his previous life!"

As long as you know who the real enemy is, everything will be easy. Betrayal? Boss Fang said he didn't like the word! I don't like it!