October 12^th, 2003 (12:00am) - On September 30th Nintendo severed its ties with Hasbro owned subsidiary Wizards of Coast, announcing their own new division to manage its Pokemon, E-Reader, and Animal Crossing trading cards.

"Since Nintendo already produces the Pokemon video games, it’s a natural extension for them to distribute and market the trading card games," said Pokemon USA President Akira Chiba.

Furious that they’ve now lost the rights to distribute Nintendo’s Pokemon card game, Wizards of Coast has filed a lawsuit against Nintendo of America, The Pokemon Co., Pokemon USA and two former executives. Wizards’ suit alleges patent infringement, breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortuous interference with a business relationship, unjust enrichment and other claims. However, most will say that Wizards has become bitter with the loss of the Pokemon license, wanting to force Nintendo into a settlement renewing it.

"We were sued the day after our distribution agreement with Wizards ended," said a statement issued by Pokemon USA, denying any wrong doing. "We are confident that we’ve acted both legally and fairly with respect to Wizards and believe these issues will be resolved."

Wizards suit alleges that Pokemon USA failed to carry out its contract and therefore Wizards is "entitled to an award of exemplary damages to punish Pokemon USA’s wrongful conduct and to make an example of it."

"Wizards of the Coast has built tremendous brand equity over the years with our popular proprietary trading card games, and aggressively seeks to protect its valuable intellectual property and trade secrets," the company said in a statement. "Pokemon USA used the intervening period to undermine its relationship with Wizards, deprive Wizards of the benefit of its bargain and take its intellectual property, all to gain competitive advantage over its longtime partner."