The judge rejected a motion from 6waves Lolapps to dismiss the case, thus undermining their main defense, since the games did have several identical gameplay elements.

In 2011, Spry Fox created Triple Town, where players build a city by matching tiles, and merging objects into larger ones.

[4] However, 6waves Lolapps asked the court to dismiss the case on the basis that the basic gameplay in Triple Town was not protected by copyright, based on similar rulings such as Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc. from 1988.

[6] Publicly, Spry Fox's chief creative officer commented that "there are also people who have learned from history that cloning is a valid business model, and they’re going to build out entire companies around that concept".

The court excluded some elements of Triple Town from copyright protection as "scènes à faire", such as using coins to track the score and exchange for in-game advantages.

Perhaps more importantly, the object hierarchy coupled with the depiction of the field of play comprise a setting and theme that is similar to Triple Town's.

[11] Along with the 2012 copyright case Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc., this ruling indicates a legal system that is willing to protect original games from potential clones.

Although the ruling was only on the motion to dismiss, it is notable that they found substantial similarity despite having distinguishable art assets, unlike the Tetris v. Xio case.

[2] Legal scholars Elizabeth and Ronald Gard noted that the motion was decided days after the Tetris v. Xio decision, finding substantial similarity between the two games based on the look and feel instead of literal copying.

[13] Kyle Orland from Ars Technica also compared the case to Tetris v. Xio, and similarly argued that judges had evolved on video game copyright due to greater experience with the medium.

[4] This was also the analysis of attorney of Jack C. Schecter, who noted that 6waves Lolapps had agreed to develop an iOS version of Triple Town before releasing their alleged clone.

[10][14] John Kuehl made similar comments for the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, noting that courts are more likely to find infringement where there was demonstrable evidence that the defendant was trying to imitate the plaintiff's game.