Early Atari lawsuits

[tz101]

Not knowing much about the history of Atari's early 80's lawsuits, I am trying to understand the legal logic behind one in particular: Atari vs. Imagic, regarding Demon Attack.

 

OK, so the flying demons in Demon Attack mimic the flying birds in Phoenix somewhat, but some judge actually awarded monetary compensation to Atari over this? Wow! I look at so many other games of that era and have to wonder why the lawsuits didn't fly: Dig Dug compared to Mr. Do. I think Mr. Do came out first, so was Atari guilty of plagiarism here? Robot Tank vs. Battlezone. Why didn't Atari let the litigation fly on this one?

[kskunk]

Not knowing much about the history of Atari's early 80's lawsuits, I am trying to understand the legal logic behind one in particular: Atari vs. Imagic, regarding Demon Attack.

The main reason for any corporate lawsuit is that a self-important executive gets his panties in a bunch and calls the legal department. (Bunched panties are the primary cause of civil suits in general, but I digress.) A corporate legal department never says no to any complaint... in fact, the sillier the lawsuit, the more expensive it is to fight, and the better the lawyers get paid.

 

In this case, Atari had paid big fees for the console rights for the popular Phoenix arcade, and expected to make a mint. Then Imagic shows up with a very similar game, and obviously didn't pay the fee that Atari did.

 

"Well, that's just plain unfair! We had to pay, and you didn't, and we're kind of worried your game will sell better than ours!" If it weren't for the exact timing (they were both on the market at the same time), and the fact that Atari paid, and the fact that Demon Attack was a pretty rocking game, nobody's feelings would be hurt and there'd be no lawsuit.

 

There are two stories about what happened next: One (told by Imagic) is that Atari realized they were being silly and dropped the lawsuit. The other version says Imagic paid Atari out of court to stop suing them. 99% of corporate litigation goes that route.

 

Either way, I don't believe the judge ruled for Atari. What was your source on that?

 

Here's mine: http://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/rob_fulop.html?SystemID=2600

 

These kinds of 'that was my idea' suits are just a fact of life. People sue each other for songs that sound alike, for movies that resemble other movies, there's even a story of some fruity company suing everybody claiming 'we invented the trash can!'

 

Sometimes judges just tell the babies to go home and try competing on merit. Those guys deserve a bonus.

 

- KS

Edited May 16, 2011 by kskunk

[SoulBlazer]

I think there's a more simplistic answer to the question about why more lawsuits didn't happen in the classic video game era.

 

I wish I could recall where I read this from -- it may have been someone else on these forums, it may have been one of the video game history books, it may have been somewhere else -- or perhaps it's just something I put together myself from reading a bunch of stuff.

 

Look at the games that came out during that time period. Even more so then now, there were NO original ideas. All the games copied of each other in some manner. Regardless if it was one of the many 'me to!' clones that sprang from popular games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong or just making another maze chase or space shooter game, everyone was blantly copying off each other.

 

The fear was that if one company filed a lawsuit it would cause a chain reaction to go through the industry, everyone would sue everyone, and no one would make any money and game production would come to a end. That was a can of worms no one wanted to open.

 

Additional: I just recalled where I saw this in print -- from the Blue Sky Rangers Intelivision Lives website talking about how Matell licenced a game from Konami for the INTV and then saw Activision come out with a clone first. I can't copy and paste right now though as the website seems to be not working correctly.

[tz101]

I started this thread because I think I read that Atari won some kind of reward from Imagic, and that Imagic ended up paying Atari a royalty from every Demon Attack game sold. Is this a blatantly false rumor?

 

And like I mentioned, if it did happen, then why did Atari not have to pay royalties to Universal for its Mr. Do knockoff?

[jetset]

 

OK, so the flying demons in Demon Attack mimic the flying birds in Phoenix somewhat, but some judge actually awarded monetary

 

They mimic it a lot more than somewhat. Granted it's not as blatant a ripoff as KC Munchkin was, but it was pretty clear which arcade game they were trying to copy.

Atari was trying to protect their investment. They paid what I'm sure was a decent amount of money for the home license to Phoenix. They didn't want someone profiting from a game that they paid exclusive rights to sell.

[tz101]

^

Perhaps, but Atari did the same with Dig Dug. Also, they did not sue Activision over Robot Tank.

[Retro Rogue]

Here's mine: http://www.atariage....l?SystemID=2600

 

 

 

There's also http://www.nytimes.c...it-settled.html

 

 

 

^

Perhaps, but Atari did the same with Dig Dug.

 

Did what with Dig Dug? Is that what you were referring to with "then why did Atari not have to pay royalties to Universal for its Mr. Do knockoff?"

Dig Dug was by Namco, not Atari, and even then it came out before Mr. Do.

Edited May 17, 2011 by wgungfu

[jaybird3rd]

Bruce Davis (who would have been vice president and general council for Imagic at the time) mentioned this case in an interview a few years ago. He characterized the settlement as a "nominal" one, negotiated after Atari had started the proceedings and realized how weak their case was. Atari was clearly out to "get" Imagic, but this case didn't amount to much of anything. Their interference with Imagic's public offering was much more damaging.

[keithbk]

Next thing you know, George Lucas will sue Glen Larson over Battlestar Galactica!!!

[ATARI7800fan]

Next thing you know, George Lucas will sue Glen Larson over Battlestar Galactica!!!

 

not like it would be a big loss. The new series is a big soap opera compared to the original show, why can't studios just leave good shows alone and not screw them up.

[Chris++]

Bill Kunkel (the "Game Doctor," and one of the founders of Electronic Games magazine -- which basically was the gaming press throughout 1981 and '82) had some interesting words on Atari's approach, when he spoke at the World of Atari '98:

 

In 1982, I testified for Magnavox against Atari. Probably not the best career choice one could make, yet I happened to believe that Odyssey was right. It involved a game called K.C. Munchkin!.

 

I don’t know if anybody remembers that game, but at the time, Atari had decided that it had paid damn good money for its Pac-Man license, and it was not going to allow any other gobble games to live on the face of the earth, in any format, on any machine.

 

They originally went after all of the small developers who had put out games like Ghost Chase, Jawbreaker, Piranha and Snackman. And here’s one company, Odyssey, [that] develops a gobble game that’s unique! The idea of this game is that the fewer the dots on the screen, the faster they move. You’ve gotta chase them around and catch them. To me, this was as major a step beyond the original game as Galaxian had been past Space Invaders. I felt that it was totally legitimate. (B.K.)

[jetset]

Next thing you know, George Lucas will sue Glen Larson over Battlestar Galactica!!!

 

not like it would be a big loss. The new series is a big soap opera compared to the original show, why can't studios just leave good shows alone and not screw them up.

 

I don't think you can even consider calling the new Battlestar Galactica by that name. Apart from the names of the characters it has nothing to do with the original.

[kool kitty89]

These kinds of 'that was my idea' suits are just a fact of life. People sue each other for songs that sound alike, for movies that resemble other movies, there's even a story of some fruity company suing everybody claiming 'we invented the trash can!'

 

Sometimes judges just tell the babies to go home and try competing on merit. Those guys deserve a bonus.

Yes, but then you also have plenty of cases of big corporations railroading small ones (with some interesting exceptions like what GCC managed to do with Atari) . . . or smaller companies not even going to court because they know it will be too expensive. (that, and plenty of cases where the instigator will win no matter what simply by delaying the release of its competitor's product at a critical time)

 

Like with DRI and Apple . . . imagine how the GEM dispute would have ended if DRI had been in Microsoft's position with IBM backing them up.

Actually, that's an interesting example since Apple forced DRI to modify GEM for PC, but TOS was left alone on the ST.

 

 

 

Also interesting to note that the Magnavox/Atari Pong suit was actually NOT one of these "silly" artistic vision or "look and feel" type cases. It wasn't about the tennis game at all, but about Magnavox's patent (a la Baer) on manipulating a video signal with digital circuitry for entertainment purposes. (a patent that forced ALL video game companies to pay royalties/license fees to Magnavox -at least in North America- until the patent expired -some others went to court over that as well, including Nintendo who ended up losing that battle)

 

 

 

 

 

I think there's a more simplistic answer to the question about why more lawsuits didn't happen in the classic video game era.

There are some more serious cases where there were real (non silly) stakes on the line for real transgressions that never went to court or ended up being poorly managed in court. (the latter seems to be the case for some of the antitrust litigation brought against Nintendo -albeit that may not have been the case if Nintendo hadn't caved in the early 90s and started opening up their licensing, something that prevented future lawsuits that many 3rd party publishers seemed to be moving towards)

 

 

One particular case on that would be the VCS clones, especially Coleco's which gave a major selling point advantage to the Colecovision and detracted sales from the VCS/2600 in general (which were being sold for modest profit) as well as the 5200.

 

Maybe there was a lawsuit that I'm not aware of, but I haven't seen any information on that. The only thing I've seen mentioned was that they were able to legally clone the hardware since the VCS was made of "off the shelf parts", but that's wrong. (it's no more off the shelf than most consoles/computers -a good deal less than some)

 

From what I understand, Coleco (or a company they outsourced to) reverse engineered TIA and created their own TIA clone to manufacture (the rest of the VCS was indeed off the shelf), and Steve Golson of GCC actually mentioned that the chip vendor they were using to prototype the 7800 (I forget which) had been the one to supply (if not engineer) Coleco's TIA clones. (which came in handy for GCC as they could procure TIA compatible chips from the same vendor -albeit it probably wouldn't have been a big deal to have Warner get Atari to forward some TIAs to GCC)

 

Maybe there wouldn't have been a case for Atari to work with if Coleco had reverse engineered TIA in a non-patent-infringing manner . . . or if Atari Inc had failed to patent TIA in general. (that would have been a massive oversight)

 

 

Look at the games that came out during that time period. Even more so then now, there were NO original ideas. All the games copied of each other in some manner. Regardless if it was one of the many 'me to!' clones that sprang from popular games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong or just making another maze chase or space shooter game, everyone was blantly copying off each other.

That's called inspiration, one person building on another's work. (well, aside from the really blatant clones with nothing original or improved)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I started this thread because I think I read that Atari won some kind of reward from Imagic, and that Imagic ended up paying Atari a royalty from every Demon Attack game sold. Is this a blatantly false rumor?

That doesn't mean Atari won the case in court, it just means they settled. Imagic may or may not have thought they could win the case, but either way they could have realized that settling early would be cheaper in the long run. (compared to a costly, prolonged court battle)

 

And why didn't more games get sued over? Probably because they didn't get enough interest or not the "right" interest from corporate executives who would go into a fit over the matter and take legal action. (to some degree it's up to chance, and to some degree it's up to a product becoming successful -a popular product that "might be infringing" is a lot different from a poorly selling/barely known product of the same -or more legitimate- nature)

 

From a realistic standpoint, there's a lot of similar games that weren't rip-offs and weren't necessarily related at all. (in many cases, they could simply be convergent evolution of like minded people, or shared inspiration like with Frogger and Freeway)

Plus, unlike a patent, (in the US) copyrighting is automatic (happens at creation) . . . though can also tricky to formally establish legitimacy. (plus, for a time, there were no copyrights on computer code, further complicating matters)

 

Actually, before code could be copyrighted, "look and feel" was all you could fight over.

 

 

 

 

They originally went after all of the small developers who had put out games like Ghost Chase, Jawbreaker, Piranha and Snackman. And here’s one company, Odyssey, [that] develops a gobble game that’s unique! The idea of this game is that the fewer the dots on the screen, the faster they move. You’ve gotta chase them around and catch them. To me, this was as major a step beyond the original game as Galaxian had been past Space Invaders. I felt that it was totally legitimate. (B.K.)

From the business/legal end, it doesn't matter if it's "legitimate", only whether it can be disputed and fought over in court.

Edited May 18, 2011 by kool kitty89

[fiddlepaddle]

Next thing you know, George Lucas will sue Glen Larson over Battlestar Galactica!!!

 

not like it would be a big loss. The new series is a big soap opera compared to the original show, why can't studios just leave good shows alone and not screw them up.

 

I don't think you can even consider calling the new Battlestar Galactica by that name. Apart from the names of the characters it has nothing to do with the original.

The Cylons (the metal ones) are cooler in the new show, and the space battles are pretty good too.

[kool kitty89]

Next thing you know, George Lucas will sue Glen Larson over Battlestar Galactica!!!

 

not like it would be a big loss. The new series is a big soap opera compared to the original show, why can't studios just leave good shows alone and not screw them up.

 

I don't think you can even consider calling the new Battlestar Galactica by that name. Apart from the names of the characters it has nothing to do with the original.

The Cylons (the metal ones) are cooler in the new show, and the space battles are pretty good too.

The space battles in the new BSG are some of the very, very few in Sci-Fi media (especially film/TV) to actually take a real attempt at simulating real-world physics. (especially the no-sound-in-space issue )

 

I rather liked the fan service tie-ins where the original Cylons were included too. (Razor, several finale episodes, etc)

 

It's definitely a much different and (especially) much more cerebral (and complex -aside from the "soap" type drama, there's the much darker/serious political/philosophical undertone in the series -more of a major plot element than an undertone, actually).

 

It's definitely not just a remake, but a total reimagining of the series. Thus, there's not much correlation between liking the original and the new series. (you might like both, you might like one or the other, you might not like either)

 

I personally liked the new series, but the ending was a bit of a cop out IMO. (there have been much worse cop-out type finales though . . . don' get me started on LOST -Actually, X-Files had a LOT of continuity issues if you watch the shows back to back, a lot of contradiction and ignored/retconed plot lines, but I digress)

[Goochman]

Whats ironic about this is Atari didnt release any Phoenix games until later in the 2600's life. I was hoping for an 8bit version but Atari just sat on this license like many others it seems.