Starfall, a Nonprofit, Goes to Court to Protect Our Kids

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Starfall Education Foundation, a publicly supported nonprofit, has filed a lawsuit in Denver federal court today against Tencent Holdings Ltd (TCEHY), a Chinese technology conglomerate designated by the Pentagon as an agent of the Chinese military, and it's Singaporean subsidiaries, Level Infinite Pte Ltd and Proxima Beta Pte Ltd. (collectively “Tencent”), alleging that they hijacked Starfall’s U.S. trademarks to attract children to violent computer games and collect children's personal private information including email addresses, and assigning a personal ID.

Starfall alleges that Tencent is using the STARFALL Mark to promote a pass "to allow players to log into multiple games," some of which involve "assault rifles to blast and kill." Starfall further alleges that children will "believe that there is a relationship of source, sponsorship, and/or affiliation" between Starfall and Tencent.

In 2002, Starfall was founded by Stephen Schutz as a social enterprise to help teach young children to read. "I consider myself an expert in this field because I couldn't read myself until the 5th-6th grade," said Schutz who went on to graduate from MIT and get a Ph.D. in physics at Princeton. Over the years, Starfall became widely used and expanded its games, movies and books to include math and social-emotional learning, Starfall became a nonprofit (501c3) in 2015 and has developed educational games for children up to the 5th grade.

To promote understanding and respect Starfall developed a kindness activity six years ago that has recorded over 71 million acts of kindness on its website. Starfall is now developing interactive kindness exhibits for children's museums in the U.S. and around the world.