Back in 2010, a man from a company named Executive Trading called Upper Deck and proposed a partnership for a new series of political-themed trading cards that would be used as inserts in packs of baseball cards. Despite this being a terrible, horrible, awful idea, Upper Deck apparently told Executive’s President Justen VanGrinsven that they were down and the two parties continued to have regular correspondence over the following months, according to The Cardboard Connection.
At some point the deal fell apart and Upper Deck told VanGrinsven that the company was no longer interested in his political trading cards and people probably said, “Good, this was a terrible idea anyway, because nobody wants to collect cards that feature politicians.” Or not. Because Upper Deck turned around and released the “World of Politics” insert series last year, featuring all of the Democrat and Republican candidates who were involved with the 2012 election primaries.
Of course, Executive Trading was none too pleased with that and VanGrinsven and Co. are suing. And Upper Deck is suing them back. Because America.
To use Executive’s own words:
Despite representing to Executive Trading that Upper Deck would not produce such works without Executive Trading, Upper Deck moved ahead with Executive Trading’s idea, and used its proprietary information, to the complete exclusion and detriment of Executive Trading and in breach of the Confidential Agreement.
Which brings us to today: Executive suing UD for allegedly being a bad business partner and stealing Executive’s “proprietary” information.
Now, after reading everything, I hate to be harsh, but even if Upper Deck did everything that Executive Trading alleges, it’s unclear if it did anything illegal like violating a copyright or breaching a contract.
Additionally, Courthouse News reported back in August that Upper Deck has been producing political cards for some time, and the company’s defense is that this is hardly the most unique idea, because people have been producing political-themed trading cards since the 1800s.
I’ve included the cards after the jump, because it’s important that we all see the reason that more money is being wasted in courts. These cards are available on eBay for .99 and less, because nobody wants to buy them. But sure, go ahead and release a series of cards about Obama’s dog. Great business strategy.
(Card images .)
