The Plaintiff

First, let's look at the plaintiff's situation:

Hasbro recently acquired the rights to a number of old games, frequently referred to as 'classics'. These rights are known in the trade as Intellectual Property ('IP') rights. They have also acquired licenses to exercise IP rights to other games, such as Tetris(R), on specific platforms.

Hasbro are legally required to protect that Intellectual Property to the best of their abilities. No 'ifs', no 'buts': they have to protect anything that has that little 'R' or 'TM' in a circle next to its name. Otherwise, they lose it to the public domain. If they don't protect them, they lose 'em.

Hence the lawsuits.

The Defendants