ballyalley Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 While going through the Astrocade patents I stumbled upon a lawsuit that is Magnavox vs. Bally from 1975. It deals with the Odyssey patent. Or, at least, I think that it deals with that "console" from 1972. Does anyone know the details about this lawsuit?Here are some possibly helpful links:Magnavox Vs. Activision (1983):https://www.ipmall.info/sites/default/files/hosted_resources/Activision_Litigation_Documents/12-29-82_to_02-04-83/Civil_Action_C82_5270_Teh_10Am_10Jan83.pdfCopy Game for High Score: The First Video Game Lawsuit, by William K. Ford (2012):https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1035&context=jiplCan anyone find the original lawsuit? Did Bally get a license from Magnavox/Sanders to make the Bally Arcade home system?Adam (The was originally posted Nov 6, 2018 as BallyAlley Yahoo Group message #16138.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 (edited) I think that's the Sanders Television Gaming and Training Apparatus patent. Sanders was the company Ralph Baer worked for and Magnavox had an exclusive license. I think Baer pushed Magnavox to go after all these video game companies. If it's 1975 it must be about a Midway arcade game. There's a witness deposition that talks about spaceships and torpedoes. I was trying to figure out which game that is. If they settled out of court you might not find much information. Everyone paid for the license, atari, mattel, nintendo. Were arcade manufacturers subject to the patent? Their arguement was that removing the receiver from the tv means it's no longer a television. Edited April 18, 2019 by mr_me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted April 19, 2019 Author Share Posted April 19, 2019 Were arcade manufacturers subject to the patent? Their arguement was that removing the receiver from the tv means it's no longer a television. Did that argument work out for them? Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted April 19, 2019 Share Posted April 19, 2019 My guess is that it didn't. Ralph Baer mentions he covered monitors in his patent. http://ralphbaer.com/how_video_games.htm I think the spaceships game in that deposition is Spacewar on the pdp-1. They were probably trying to establish prior art. Spacewar and Higinbotham's Tennis for Two have been brought up in court. I'm surprised that didn't work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.