On Dec. 9, Epic filed its complaint against Geiler and Sick Picnic Media, claiming that Dancing Pumpkin Man isn’t a trademarked character, so Geiler can’t enforce a cease-and-desist.

Fortnite developer Epic Games is involved ... As explained by The Verge, Matt Geiler, better known to the internet as the Dancing Pumpkin Man, sent Epic a cease-and-desist letter in October ...

Dancing Pumpkin Man, or Matt Geiler stated his unhappiness with Epic Games over a character resembling his likeness in Fortnite. Epic Games has since filed a preemptive complaint to a New York ...

Epic’s preemptive complaint makes some standard defenses. It says that Fortnite doesn’t reference the Dancing Pumpkin Man name, the emote uses a different-looking jack-o’-lantern ...