Spribe is a game studio founded in Tbilisi in 2018 and headquartered in Georgia with offices in Kyiv and Warsaw, developer of Aviator, the crash game that became one of the most-played casino products in Africa, Latin America, India and Eastern Europe and defined the crash category, together with a range of turbo games including Mines, Plinko, Dice and Goal. Its games are certified in Britain, Malta, Italy, Spain, Romania, Greece, South Africa, Colombia, Ontario and other regulated markets, and the studio holds a UK Gambling Commission licence and has pursued intellectual-property actions against copies of Aviator.
Three appeal judges have unanimously reversed the High Court on which law decides whether Georgian rulings stop Spribe reopening copyright ownership and copying in London. It is a procedural win for Aviator LLC, not a finding of infringement, and whether the Georgian rulings bind the English court is still undecided.
The state court that granted Spribe an injunction against NSX in April, then revoked it in July when a federal court suspended the developer's trademark, has now ruled on the merits: no trademark infringement, no copyright infringement, no unfair competition. It is the third Brazilian decision in a row to go against the Estonian studio, three days after a Brasília judge ordered it to police its own distribution.
Prosecutors want R$110m from the Estonian developer for letting the "little plane" fly on unauthorised sites. The judge refused to ground the game outright, but ordered Spribe to name every partner, suspend the illegal integrations and geo-block, at R$100,000 a day.
The First Hall of the Civil Court granted Spribe an ex parte provisional injunction on 1 September covering two EU trademarks. The evidence the court cited is the kind operators can check for themselves: the two games appearing side by side in a search on Betsson, and a listing that credited Spribe's game to the wrong studio.
Spribe's global campaign to protect its Aviator crash game is gaining momentum in the courts. A Brazilian ruling against one of Flutter's own brands sends a clear message to the entire industry.