Koei Tecmo settles copyright dispute with Youzu out of court

Koei Tecmo has settled its intellectual property infringement case against Youzu.

Earlier today, Koei Tecmo confirmed it had reached an out-of-court settlement with Youzu, with the latter "admitting and apologising for [its] infringement" of Koei Tecmo's games, Nobunaga's Ambition and Taiko Risshiden.

Koei Tecmo says Youzu was "continuously using [...] the music and images created for [its] games" without obtaining the former's permission for its own mobile titles, including Sengoku Legend: Uprising, Infinity Kingdom, and Dynasty Origins.

By using its music and images, Koei Tecmo says Youzu violated its IP rights in a way that could "lead to misconceptions by users and partners".

Despite trying to resolve the matter via cease-and-desist letters and accepting Youzu's "voluntary promise" to remove any contested IP violations, the "infringement activities continued", prompting Koei Tecmo to go to court.

"[Youzu] admitted their intellectual property infringement against our copyrights and trademarks by creating and distributing their online advertising and apologised formally for the immense inconvenience to us," Tecmo Koei said in a statement.

"In the settlement, we have reached an agreement and decided measures dealing with the prevention of further infringement in the future. We judged the condition of the agreement meets our company policy for protecting intellectual property rights. For that reason, we decided to accept the settlement."