Company that offers Mario Kart-style tours must pay damages

A Japanese court has ruled that the former Maricar company must pay damages to Nintendo for offering Mario Kart-based go-kart tours in Tokyo. The company must stop all references to Nintendo and Mario Kart.

Nintendo writes that the Intellectual Property High Court in a final verdict has determined that Maricar, which currently operates under the name Mari Mobility Development, must pay compensation of approximately 416,000 euros. This court already reached this conclusion during an earlier, provisional judgment. The damages imposed are five times higher than the damages imposed by the lower Tokyo District Court in 2017.

According to the Intellectual Property High Court, that amount of damage of more than four tons is related to the damage that Nintendo has suffered as a result of unfair competition. The use of costumes that resemble Mario contributed to that unfair competition, according to the court. Nintendo says that it will continue to take measures to prevent its intellectual property from being violated. The Japanese game company started this lawsuit in February 2017.

Mari Mobility must also remove the Nintendo logo and the MariCar domain name. Nintendo argued that this name refers too much to the game Mario Kart and that the company was not allowed to use the costumes of various Mario Kart characters commercially.

On photos on the Mari Mobility’s website it can be seen that the names Nintendo and MariCar, which were previously on the go-karts, have been made unrecognizable. The site can also be reached via Maricar.com. The tours labeled Street Kart are, according to a statement on the website, “completely compliant with Japanese laws and in no way a reflection of Nintendo or the Mario Kart game.” The company also says that it does not rent costumes from Mario series.