Supreme Court rules in favor of Nexon, orders Dark and Darker developer to pay $3.8 million

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a ruling ordering Ironmace, the developer behind the video game Dark and Darker, to pay 5.7 billion won ($3.8 million) in damages to fellow game developer and publisher Nexon over a trade secret dispute.

An image for Ironmace's video game Dark and Darker [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a ruling ordering Ironmace, the developer behind the video game Dark and Darker, to pay 5.7 billion won ($3.8 million) in damages to fellow game developer and publisher Nexon over a trade secret dispute.

The Supreme Court ruled partially in favor of Nexon, agreeing that Ironmace is responsible for the unauthorized acquisition and use of trade secrets. The top court, however, agreed with the lower court that Ironmace did not infringe on Nexon's copyrights.

The ruling comes five years after Nexon sued Ironmace, as a few former employees allegedly stole source code and other assets from one of Nexon's in-development projects at the time, joined Ironmace and used the information to create Dark and Darker.

The trial court originally ruled partially in favor of Nexon in February of last year, ordering Ironmace to pay Nexon 8.5 billion won in compensation for infringing on trade secrets, with Ironmace paying 80 percent of the court costs. But it did not find Ironmace in violation of copyright laws.

The appeals court lowered the compensation to 5.7 billion won, as the lower court's calculation was based on revenue estimates. However, it fully sided with Nexon in finding Ironmace guilty of unfair competition. In a press briefing released Thursday, the Supreme Court explained that Dark and Darker cannot have infringed Nexon's copyrights, as Nexon's project was a battle royale game, while Dark and Darker falls under the extraction category of games.

However, Ironmace's acquisition of the source code, graphic resources and internal game data from Nexon's project was an infringement of trade secrets.

“The ruling reaffirms that it is unacceptable to unlawfully expropriate another company's assets for profit,” Nexon said in a press release Thursday, shortly after the ruling.

Ironmace, complying with the Supreme Court's ruling, appreciated that the court ruled that Dark and Darker was different from Nexon's game.

"The Supreme Court has concluded that Nexon's [planned] game is not similar and that Ironmace has not unlawfully accessed Nexon's achievements," the firm said Thursday. “While we are not fully satisfied with the ruling, we are glad that we are now able to stably service the game."

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]