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Level-5 CEO Hiroshi Akihiro Hino responded directly to Sega's recent lawsuit, denying that the Professor Layton developer had infringed on Sega's patents and calling for the lawsuit to be dismissed, according to a letter from Hino posted on the developer's website.
According to a Google translation, Hino wrote that Level-5 researched Sega's allegations and concluded that they did not constitute infringement. The CEO also noted that Level-5's first Inazuma Eleven game was released in 2008, but Sega's patents were not granted until 2009 and 2011. Hino speculates that the purpose of Sega's lawsuit is to "limit" the games that Level-5 and others developers who use similar control schemes can make.
Sega alleges that Level-5 violated patents pertaining to controlling characters with a combination of touch and stylus controls in Inazuma Eleven, a series of soccer-based role-playing games for the Nintendo 3DS. Sega is seeking 900 million yen from the developer.
