WWE 2K Lawsuit Over Randy Orton’s Tattoos Going To Trial This Month

The long-delayed lawsuit over Randy Orton’s tattoos in WWE 2K is set to go to trial later this month. PWInsider reports that lawsuit filed by tattoo artist Catherine Alexander’s against WWE, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., 2K Games, Inc., 2K Sports, Inc., Visual Concepts Entertainment, Yuke’s Co., Ltd. and Yuke’s LA Inc. is scheduled to go to trial on September 26th in the U.S. District Court Southern District of Illinois. The final pre-trial hearing will take place on September 19th.

The lawsuit was originally filed in April of 2018 and alleges that Alexander owns all the original designs for her work on Orton. She alleges that she never gave the defendants permission to recreate them in the video games and thus they are infringing on her copyrights.

The trial has been postponed several times over the past few years for various reasons, including of course the pandemic. It was most recently delayed back in January due to the surge in the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which meant that “a jury cannot be safely impaneled and trial cannot proceed as currently scheduled.”

A judge ruled in September of 2020 that WWE and Take-Two had copied five of Alexander’s original designs that she holds valid trademarks on but denied a summary judgment for Alexander, sending the case toward a jury trial.