Ralph Baer On Atari/Pong Lawsuit, Birth Of Gaming 27
Roosevelt Franklin writes "GamerDad.com put up
a great interview with videogaming pioneer Ralph Baer today. He talks about the birth of the game industry, the Brown Box (Magnavox Odyssey), the Atari/Pong lawsuit, his patents, and a parent's responsibility. Baer is the original Game God and GamerDad calls him the Original GamerDad too!" Baer says of Pong and patent infringement: "After ten years of litigation in courts from Chicago to San Francisco we collected many tens of millions of dollars."
The Original Gamingdad was a litigious monster (Score:4, Interesting)
People who sue for infringement today are called predators.
In the grand scheme of things, however, neither he nor Atari are around anymore to fight for the home gaming market. Both stagnated and were eventually overcome by the Nintendos, Sonies, and Microsofts of the world.
Re:The Original Gamingdad was a litigious monster (Score:3)
Re:The Original Gamingdad was a litigious monster (Score:1)
Tales of frivolous lawsuits past (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tales of frivolous lawsuits past (Score:2, Funny)
The anti SCO flames can begin now.
Re:Tales of frivolous lawsuits past (Score:2)
Who is SCO suing now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Before you touch your joystick again, please pay $699.
Re:Who is SCO suing now? (Score:4, Funny)
MY GOD! (Score:5, Interesting)
Which means he's ultimately single-handedly responsible for starting the video game AND electronic game business of the late 70's early 80's!!
(You young whipper snappers wouldn't understand, Pong and Simon had about as much market saturation as Pokemon and Yugi-oh.)
Re:MY GOD! (Score:2)
I mean is: it's never gone out of production. Not a lot of videogames you can say that about, barring sequels.
Re:MY GOD! (Score:2)
Re:MY GOD! (Score:2)
I wish they made those stand alone pong machines (Score:1)
Not cool. (Score:2)
We need tighter patent rules (Score:3, Insightful)
150 patents and even more ideas (Score:4, Funny)
"We won our lawsuits because our patents covered both what is termed "means plus function"...i.e. we showed in the patents and claimed the concepts of the interaction of machine controlled screen symbols (such as a ball) and player controlled symbols such as the player paddles (the functions). We also showed how this interaction could be accomplished (the means). Any game made by a manufacturer that exhibited the type of interaction defined by our patents was found to be infringing..."
Translated:
Gamer Dad: "It's a game, see, where you hit a "ball" with a "paddle". Those are the functions."
Patent examiner: "That already exists. It is called "tennis". Or "ping pong" if you like."
Gamer Dad: "But I haven't told you the means yet! You do this... with A COMPUTER!"
Patent examiner: "You hit the ball with a computer?"
Game Dad: "No! No! The paddle and ball are both on the computer screen!"
Patent examiner: "Whoah! That's novel! If that isn't worth a patent, I don't know what is!"
Gamer Dad: "Then there is my second idea. You run towards a gorilla who is throwing barrels at you."
Patent examiner: "Is that a game?"
Gamer Dad: "And you do this... on A COMPUTER!"
Patent examiner faints from so much innovative power.
Re:150 patents and even more ideas (Score:2)
Back then the concept of video games was unique, nowadays trying to patent "a scrolling character moves across the screen as directed by the gamepad etc etc" would be laughable as it's not unique nor is the concept original despite the medium.
Analog vs Digital (Score:1, Funny)
heh