Marvel and Disney have asked a judge to dismiss a copyright-infringement lawsuit over the design of Iron Man's movie armor, arguing it was filed in the wrong jurisdiction.

Artists Ben Lai and Ray Lai sued in April in Massachusetts federal court, claiming Marvel had ripped off body-armor designs for the 2001 comic "Radix." However, in a motion filed today by Marvel and Disney, and first reported by Deadline, the defendants insist neither they nor the Quebec-based Lai brothers have any connection to Massachusetts. Therefore, they say, the lawsuit should be dismissed or, in the alternative, transferred to New York.

The owners of Horizon Comics Productions, the Lais announced in April 2013 -- just ahead of the premiere of "Iron Man 3" -- that they'd issued a cease-and-desist letter regarding the armor, It was another two years before they filed their lawsuit.

The artists, whose credits include Marvel's "Thor" and CrossGen's "Sigil," argue that from Iron Man's introduction in 1963, the character typically has been depicted "wearing simple spandex-like attire and minimal armor." But they say that changed after they showed the publisher their work on "Radix," which features characters that "wear highly detailed, mechanized suits of body armor."

However, jurisdiction may be the least of the obstacles the Lai brothers face. As noted previously, there's the question of whether they filed their lawsuit in a timely manner.