Star Trek legal dispute settled
Activision and Viacom have settled their ongoing legal tussle over the Star Trek videogame license. Neither sounds, er, phased by the ordeal.
Publisher Activision and media giant Viacom have settled a legal dispute concerning their Star Trek videogame license agreement, the two companies announced late on Friday.
As a result of the settlement, details of which have not been disclosed, all pending lawsuits filed by each party in the LA Superior Court have been dismissed.
Friday's joint announcement concludes hostilities that began back in July 2003 when Activision accused its media partner of not making enough Star Trek TV shows and feature films.
The publisher complained that since signing a 1998 licensing agreement for videogame rights Viacom had only produced one film and had allowed the science fiction franchise's TV shows to stagnate.
Activision said that Viacom's failure to continually "exploit and support" Star Trek had "significantly diminished the value of Star Trek licensing rights", breaching "a fundamental term of [Viacom's] agreement with Activision" and causing the publisher "significant damage".
At the time Viacom dismissed the claims as an attempt to renegotiate its licensing deal through the courts and said it intended to hold Activision "fully responsible for its action".
Last Friday both companies said they were pleased with the amicable resolution and looking forward to working together on future projects.
If the two are collaborating on new Star Trek projects, however, they remain under wraps. The last Star Trek game announcement came from online game developer Perpetual Entertainment, which announced in September that it was producing a massively multiplayer game based on the sci-fi series.
