To be honest, this Bad Dragon lawsuit isn’t about anything super controversial; it is just a legal case where two companies or brands are sorting things out the legal way about who owns the copyright to their specific products, and that’s all! To be more specific, it is Bad Dragon that is taking another company to court regarding some business allegations and copied their product designs. Let’s see how the whole thing unfolded and what verdict came.
What Is Bad Dragon?
It’s quite normal if you haven’t heard of it before because actually, only those who are their customers know about them, and it is not that popular in the country, but since they’re getting involved in this lawsuit, a lot of people are getting to know about them lately. First of all, a little bit of the backstory here, so Bad Dragon is an American company located in Phoenix, Arizona, that started its journey in 2008. It is most famous for making adult toys or sex toys based on fantasies and myths that are inspired by creatures like dragons, wolves, etc.
Jan Mulders aka Varka is the man behind the idea of this brand. Like, he started creating designs for sex toys when he was a student in Scotland. Gradually, Bad Dragon got highly popular among the communities involved in creativity and fantasy. Hence, when such look-alike products came into the market, the company realized it.
Why Did Bad Dragon File A Lawsuit?
Well, in March 2024, the lawsuit was filed by Bad Dragon against SinSaint Inc., a New York company, in Arizona. Why? What went so wrong? Oh, if you read the details of this case, actually, the complaint alleges that the defendant copied some of the plaintiff’s most successful designs and sold goods that were almost replicas of those of the plaintiff.
The complaint further states that SinSaint took up names that, according to Bad Dragon, were essentially the same as their product names. Bad Dragon requested that the court prevent SinSaint from marketing such goods and that the latter be ordered to surrender the profits obtained from such sales so far.
How Did SinSaint Respond?
In this case so far, SinSaint argued against the lawsuit by saying the Arizona court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case. Since SinSaint was a New York company, the company asserted that it should not be asked to defend itself in Arizona.
Bad Dragon explained that SinSaint had sold products online to customers in Arizona and had even used some services that were located in Arizona, like the domain registration through GoDaddy. Nevertheless, the court did not consider this argument to be the most influential one. So?
Well, later down the line, we saw how SinSaint filed a motion to dismiss the case in 2025.
What Was The Court’s Decision?
To be precise, in February 2025, the Arizona federal court decided to return a favorable verdict for SinSaint. Why exactly? Oh, the reasoning that the judge gave was that Bad Dragon didn’t actually prove how SinSaint had actually copied their designs, and that’s why the judges didn’t side with them.
And if you think that ended just there, well, actually, later down the line, the court disapproved of Bad Dragon’s motion for extra investigation as it was termed as a “fishing expedition.” Consequently, the lawsuit was terminated without dealing with the issue of whether the designs were indeed copied or not.
Why Is This Case Important?
This is a great example of how complicated online business disputes can get, especially when companies are from different states. Just because a company sells its products nationwide doesn’t mean it can be sued anywhere.
Other than that, yeah, there is another perspective, like it pretty much demonstrates the challenge of legally securing visually creative works, particularly in niche market segments. The issues of originality and who owns the design have been left open by the case.
