Ralph Baer On Atari/Pong Lawsuit, Birth Of Gaming

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

[ObviousGuy]

I guess back in those days it was common practice to sue people who infringed on patents. Today we call those people heros.

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

[Guppy06]

In contrast, Nintendo really made a name for itself in the US around the time they got smacked by an IP-infringement suit from Universal and their supposed ownership of the word "Kong."

Re:The Original Gamingdad was a litigious monster

[Stormwatch]

Universal should sue the chinese government for the name "Hong Kong".

Tales of frivolous lawsuits past

[AtariAmarok]

If this news item had SCO in the title, there'd be at least 67 messages by now.

Re:Tales of frivolous lawsuits past

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is out now. This gaming device had flip flops and is therefore digital. Unix(TM) runs on digital things therfore it must somehow infringe on SCO IP.

The anti SCO flames can begin now.

Re:Tales of frivolous lawsuits past

[xpccx]

Who is SCO suing now, damn it?! Oh wait, nevermind...

Who is SCO suing now?

[AtariAmarok]

"Who is SCO suing now, damn it?! Oh wait, nevermind...

Before you touch your joystick again, please pay $699.

Re:Who is SCO suing now?

[Lemmy Caution]

If I'm going to be paying $699, *I'm* not going to be the one touching my 'joystick.'

MY GOD!

[the_skywise]

Lawsuits aside, this guy INVENTED Pong AND Simon!

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!

[Lemmy Caution]

Simon was a brilliant game/toy.

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!

[hambonewilkins]

That's an interesting stat, but where is the "video" component in simon?

Re:MY GOD!

[Lemmy Caution]

That was part of my point, the lack of longevity of videogames.

I wish they made those stand alone pong machines

[linzeal]

We have a party almost every night where I live and have 3 gaming stations with some of the latest games and people still go for pong [amazon.com] as the ultimate test of twitch skill. There is something assuring about the sounds as well. Almost meditative.

Not cool.

[Tom7]

Suing innovators over overly broad patents is not cool, Gamer Dad.

We need tighter patent rules

[Nomihn0]

The money gained by receiving a patent and suing has become a huge issue nowadays. With SCO, GM crops, JPEGs, and even human genes - people are trying to cash in on others' success. It's like standing on the shoulders of a giants and then denying the giants any claim to the profits these people reap. We need clearer patent laws or else we will be inundated with licensing fees for even the most basic goods and human rights

150 patents and even more ideas

[Flyboy Connor]

In the interview he says he coined 150 patents. He describes his game patent as follows:

"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

[phorm]

Something like that would be broad/laughable now... but back in the day it truley was unique, if just for the reason that nobody else had considered a interactive graphical electronic medium (I'm not sure I'd call the system a "computer").

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

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the way the guy gets pissed off at the assumption his Brown Box was an analog computer, and then the interviewer goes on to state that his game box was Analog again and again!
heh