Shuffle Master sues LV company

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.

The owner of the popular Four Card Poker table game has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against a small Las Vegas company in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

Shuffle Master Inc., Las Vegas, filed the suit earlier this week against Gaming Entertainment Inc., claiming that its Play Four Poker game infringes on the "trade dress" of Shuffle Master's Four Card Poker.

Executives with Gaming Entertainment say they filed for a trademark on their game before Shuffle Master and that the suit is a tactic "to use the legal system to bleed us dry."

"We were there first, that's the simple fact of it," said Monier Rahall, chief financial officer of Gaming Entertainment. "They go out and take people's ideas and they say our layout is the same. Our layout is different and we filed for it before Shuffle Master filed for theirs."

Shuffle Master, which successfully developed automatic card shuffling machines in its early years and has branched out into games and table management systems, has several patent and trademark lawsuits pending against other companies.

"By filing this lawsuit, Shuffle Master is again protecting its intellectual property, its most valuable asset," Shuffle Master Chairman Mark Yoseloff said in a statement announcing the filing of the suit.

Gaming Entertainment was served with notice of the suit this week on the floor of the Global Gaming Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center.