Long-running legal feud over memorabilia cards ends
A long-running battle over patent infringement for memorabilia cards ended in a federal court this week as a case that had touched upon all of the major trading card companies, most recently Upper Deck, was dismissed.
How far back the do claims over memorabilia card concept go? In December of 1994, Adrian Gluck filed for a patent for a memorabilia card. At that time, the closest thing to what we know as a memorabilia card today was a trading card with a piece of a diamond embedded into it. After that a company called Media Tech, which licensed the patents, and Upper Deck have battled over the sports version of a memorabilia card.
In 2001, Media Tech accused Upper Deck of infringement, and in this, its most recent appeal, a pair of judges ruled the patents to be invalid based on the “obviousness” of the idea — the fact that someone could apply the previously established approach to other items.
