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Subject: Re: What do you think of this?

Re: What do you think of this?

From: Joaquim Carvalho <jdc_at_x64.com>
Date: 27 Feb 2003 19:31:37 +0000

On Thu, 2003-02-27 at 18:35, Björn Stenberg wrote:
> Joaquim Carvalho wrote:
> > A rewritten version won't be legal either because Atari has patented
> > the game concept.
>
> Really? I searched USPTO but found nothing. Do you have any links to more information about this?
>

I'm not a legal expert, "IP protection" stuff really annoys me, don't
know if it's actually a patent but Atari has legal ways to prevent
other companies from cloning their games.

In this article about the video game history you can read that
Mattel Intellivision finished an Asteroids clone and then decided
against releasing it because they didn't want a lawsuit.
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/3798/intellivision.htm

The same has happened to a company called Starpath who also wrote an
Asteroids lookalike.
http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/suicidemission/suicidemission.htm

Magnavox was sued by Atari because of K.C. Munchkin, a PacMan clone
and lost.
http://videogames.gamespot.com/features/universal/hov/p5_01.html

This one is 100% stupid:
Magnavox patented the whole concept of the home video game system
and has successfully sued Mattel because of it:
http://www.emuunlim.com/doteaters/play3sta3.htm


As we're on the subject of patents are you all aware of the threat of
software patents starting being accepted in Europe? We're not brain-dead
and we must never accept having to pay to use algorithms like
run-length-encoding. If this subject is new to you here's a place
where you can start reading something about it:
http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2741&start=15
If not, have you signed the petition?
http://petition.eurolinux.org/


Joaquim
Received on 2003-02-27

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