The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is a yearly gaming convention and this year it will be held in Seattle, Washington, United States from August 28th to 31st, 2015. The convention attracts 10's of thousands of people from all over the world. Conventions such as CES, PAX and Comic Con attract a lot of people to the cities they are held in and other unofficially held events often take place at nearby venues due to the influx of fans.

The Pokémon USA's main facility is located close by in Bellevue, Washington and the Nintendo of America Headquarters are located in Redmond, Washington. Nintendo will have a booth on the PAX show floor but no new upcoming Pokémon games like Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon are being showcased at this years event.

"During the show, there will be several PAX-sponsored tournaments and fan gatherings featuring a variety of Nintendo 3DS games, including Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire. Attendees who want to participate in the fun should bring their Nintendo 3DS systems with them to the show."


For the past 4 years, an 'Annual Unofficial Poke'mon PAX Kickoff Party' was held for Pokémon fans. It is not associated with TPCi or PAX and was a separately held party. The 5th Annual Event was to take place at 9pm on August 27th, 2015 at 500East, a social house that is a restaurant and bar, until TPCi served a lawsuit against the organizers claiming copyright infringement because their promotional poster, which specifically states unofficial, had pictures of Pikachu and Snivy. The lawsuit was filed at the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Washington on Wednesday, August 26th, 2015. As a result of the lawsuit, the event was canceled.

The defendants in this lawsuit are Ramar Larkin Jones and Zach Shore. A Facebook post dated August 11th, 2015 stated that over 30 tickets for the event had been sold costing $2 USD but the event eventually sold out. The event poster though says that there was "no cover all night". The Pokémon Company International is seeking extensive damages against the organizers of the event including higher range statutory damages, funds collected from the event and TPCi legal fees.

The lawsuit states: "Defendants have copied, created derivative works of, distributed copies to the public, and/or displayed publicly Pokémon Works without the consent or authority of TPCi, thereby directly infringing TPCi’s exclusive rights under Section 106 of the Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. § 106."

Jacob Demmitt, a GeekWire staff reporter contacted a lawyer representing The Pokémon Company International in this case to determine if they plan to continue to pursue the case even though as a result of the lawsuit, the event didn't take place, but the lawyer declined to comment until he could communicate with their client regarding the matter.

Lawsuit Document

Sources: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/pokemon-sues-fans-to-block-pokemon-party-on-eve-of-pax-game-convention-in-seattle/, http://prime.paxsite.com/what-is-pax, http://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/YuNZrXlSJVt4qM0oupQhqA4bLcslH6XE

Update: September 1st, 2015

In a follow up article by Jacob Demmitt for GeekWire, Ramar Larkin Jones said The Pokémon Company International never made any attempt to contact him or warn him first with a Cease and Desist notice.

“Unfortunately, there was never a letter, a cease-and-desist or anything,” Jones said. “We would have stopped it.”

A total of 200 tickets for the event were sold at $2 each and all of money has since been refunded due to the events cancellation.

Source: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/interview-pokemons-lawsuit-to-block-fan-party-came-without-warning-or-profits/