Nintendo, the Japanese games company, says it is 鈥榓ppalled鈥� at the recent
decision by a jury in New York to award $208 million in damages to a bankrupt
company. Nintendo says the jury鈥檚 decision was 鈥榠rrational. . . preposterous
and flat wrong鈥�. Nintendo is now asking the judge in the case to overturn
the jury鈥檚 decision. A decision is expected soon.
In 1975, Wallace Kirschner and Lawrence Haskell of the US electronics
company Alpex filed for a patent on a 鈥楾V display control apparatus鈥� (US
patent 4 026 555). The first generation of games console could only play
one type of game such as tennis or hockey. The patent filed by Kirschner
and Haskell enabled consoles to play more than one game.
Their patent is a very complex document. The console is programmed with
a plug-in cartridge. The cartridge has a ROM (read-only memory) which
stores a library of images, such as a ball and hockey or tennis players,
in the form of icons. A computer chip controlled by the player鈥檚 joystick
shunts the icons from ROM to the random-access memory. The memory then feeds
the full picture image to the screen. This happens so quickly that the icons
appear to move over a stationary background, depicting balls and players
on a sports pitch.
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In the early 1980s Alpex wrote to 73 games companies alleging infringement
of this patent. Some settled out of court, but Nintendo would not. In 1983
Alpex ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy, but the case against Nintendo
remained unresolved. Nintendo argues that the jury 鈥榮imply misunderstood鈥�
the technology, and that the patented electronics differ from its system.
