[industry] HARMONY GOLD AND PLAYMATES LAWSUIT SETTLED

[FASA Lou]

HARMONY GOLD AND PLAYMATES LAWSUIT SETTLED

For all of our BattleTech fans who continue to express an interest, we
are happy to report that the parties have fully settled the lawsuit
brought against FASA Corporation by Harmony Gold USA, Inc. and Playmates
Toys Inc. Following the settlement, the case was completely dismissed
from court. The terms of the settlement are strictly confidential and
thus can not be disclosed. We would, however, like to address a few of
the issues about which there has been much discussion.

At issue in this federal court litigation in Chicago were the rights to
use certain visual design images that had appeared in FASA's BattleTech
products and also appeared in Playmates' and Harmony Gold's Robotech
products. FASA had, for more than a decade, incorporated into its
fictional BattleTech universe a handful of images created and used in a
Japanese television series known as Macross. FASA never claimed that it
created those images. Rather, FASA has always steadfastly maintained that
it used these images pursuant to a valid license from the Japanese.
Harmony Gold and Playmates, however, challenged that claim as well as
FASA's use of visual design images created over the years by FASA's own
employees. FASA similarly challenged Playmates' and Harmony Gold's claims
of rights to the Japanese images.

As many of you know, FASA has already phased out of its products a number
of designs, including the twelve specific design images that appeared in
the Macross series. As a result, BattleTech players will no longer see in
future products visual representations of any BattleMechs that FASA did
not create. All of the names, fiction and statistics for these 'Mechs,
remain in the history of the BattleTech universe. However, to avoid any
confusion among players that could occur if the names or statistics of the
discontinued 'Mech designs were used with new design images, FASA has no
current plans to create new designs for the discontinued 'Mechs. Instead,
FASA has chosen to concentrate its efforts on utilizing the more than 160
unique BattleMech designs in its library created specifically by FASA for
BattleTech.

We are happy that the Harmony Gold/Playmates lawsuit is behind us, and
that we can continue to focus on bringing our customers the highest
quality adventure gaming products available. We certainly appreciate all
of the support we have received from our loyal fans. While we encourage
your questions and comments, please understand that we are limited in what
we can say, and therefore may not be able to provide complete answers to
everyone's satisfaction.

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