Gel Blaster, Hasbro Settle Lawsuits

This post is a bit late, but it’s still relevant.

Proceedings over gel ball blasters at the United States International Trade Commission are still ongoing, but part of the investigation is over. The big two contenders, Gel Blaster (arguably the company that made this market explode) and Hasbro (the juggernaut selling Nerf, and specifically Nerf Pro Gelfire), reached a settlement. As per Bloomberg Law:

Gel Blaster announced through a spokesman on Tuesday that the companies had reached a settlement, and that it would drop its breach of contract and theft of trade secrets lawsuit against Hasbro before a federal court in Texas. Hasbro, meanwhile, would drop its claims of patent infringement against Gel Blaster at the US International Trade Commission in Washington.

The rest of the proceedings are still ongoing. However, as of May 19, there was an order terminating the investigation into the Splat-R-Ball side of things, pending a motion. The details of the settlement have not been fully released, due to confidentiality agreements and a request for only the appropriate USITC staff to have the unredacted documents. That would appear to just leave Prime Time Toys to either mount a defense or settle. We’ll see how this plays out, especially now that Xshot has put gel ball blasters on store shelves. And as far as I’m aware, Spin Master and Hasbro, if they’re serious about defending their territory, would also be suing Zuru over this.