China’s Supreme People’s Court on December 24 upheld the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court’s ruling that the renewed software license agreement on the cult videogame title the Legend of Mir 2 signed between China’s Zhejiang Century Huatong Group Co., Ltd.’s two subsidiary companies is valid and two companies didn’t infringe South Korea’s WeMade Entertainment’s copyright, with no need to pay it 1 million yuan ($160,000) in damages sought by WeMade Entertainment.

The game title the Legend of Mir 2 is a sprite-based isometric 3-D massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by South Korea-based WeMade Entertainment. In 2017, WeMade Entertainment and its subsidiary ChuanQi IP Co., Ltd. filed a copyright infringement lawsuit with the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court against Century Huatong’s two subsidiary Lansha Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and South Korea-based Actoz Soft Co., Ltd. to invalidate the renewed software license agreement signed between them. The trial court found for the defendant. Both parties appealed the decision to the high court.

In 2001, Shengqu Games (formerly Shanda Games), Century Huatong’s another subsidiary, began to license the game from WeMade Entertainment for operation in China. Through 20 years of work, the game has been established as one of the most well-known videogame IP in China. On June 30, 2017, Actoz and Lansha renewed the license agreement on the game.

The Supreme People’s Court also confirmed that Shengqu Games is the exclusive licensee of the game in mainland China, in a bid to end the long-standing series of legal action taken around this IP.