In 2008, two plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Sony America and its game designer David Jaffe in U.S. District Court of California for copyright infringements. In the lawsuit, Jonathan Bissoon-Dath and Jennifer Dath submitted a screenplay to Sony Pictures in 2002, but the ideas were declined. However, Sony came out with a game called "God of War," which had several similarities with the script proposed by the plaintiffs. At that time Sony stated that the allegations are "inaccurate, incomplete, abstracted and/or misleading." On March 11, the Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the Northern District Court of California agreed.
The judge conceded that "No one can own the basic idea for a story. General plot ideas are not protected by copyright law; they remain forever the common property of artistic mankind." He granted summary judgment to Sony. "God of War" depicts the journey of Greek mythology, involving series of battles between gods goddesses to regain control and peace.
