🚀 go-pugleaf

| From article <1990Aug14.212146.28726@Solbourne.COM>, by kucharsk@number6.Solbourne.COM (William Kucharski):
| > In article <3145@awdprime.UUCP> tif@doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul Chamberlain) writes:
| >  >I just heard of another law suit that sounds like L&F that really bugs me.
| >  >We've all heard of Tetris right?  Yesterday I saw a new version of Tetris
| >  >for the Nintendo.  The new one, distributed by Tengen, seems far superior
| >  >at least from it's description.  It allows two players simultaneously and
| >  >(from the pictures) looks like a more appealing image.
| > 
| > The Tengen one actually came out _before_ the Nintendo version, and the Nintendo suit
| > was successful because Nintendo had purchased the home video rights to the game and
| > Tengen had not.
---
Well, my recollection of the Tengen/NES suit was that it had nothing to
do with Tetris or any other specific game.  Tengen was trying to sell
NES-compatible games without the "official" interface device that NES
licenses.  Tengen claimed to have worked around it, so that they could
make compatible games without the device; NES claimed that Tengen had
used knowledge gained under non-disclosure (Tengen had been licensed to
develop a game with NES sanction) to circumvent the intereface device (I
believe the complaint also said claimed that Tengen had violated NES
patents in the way they interfaced to the game).

My recollection is that the court held for NES and, at least as reported
in the regular press, that the holding was strictly on the grounds of
contract law -- that Tengen had used knowledge they had agreed to not
use outside of contracted work.

--
scott preece
motorola/mcd urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
uucp:	uunet!uiucuxc!udc!preece,	 arpa:	preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com