He case between Universal City Studios and Nintendo marked the past of both companies due to a rights dispute between Donkey Kong and his alleged similarity to King KongThis case was tried in the United States Federal District Court in the Southern District of New York, quite a few years ago.
But time leaves these events as imperishable marks that, from time to time, are worth remembering.
And he attended to the complaint filed by Universal City Studios towards Nintendo’s Donkey Kong video game, since according to them, the work of the Big N infringed the copyright of the King Kong franchise, which was supposedly managed by Universal.
However, this trial had a clear winner, which was Nintendo. Since the Japanese company argued with solid evidence that the rights to King Kong were in the public domain, taking as an example the case Universal City Studios, Inc. v RKO General, Inc.
The sentence was clear, referring to that Universal had acted in bad faith by threatening the rights of Nintendo license. In addition, there was no possible confusion between the character of King Kong and that of Donkey Kong. And the issue does not stop there, it is also known that Universal City Studios tried to force Coleco
This “forced” attempt forced Coleco to pay royalties of $4.6 million for distribution, which ultimately did not occur. Ultimately, the judge in charge of the case ruled that Nintendo would receive $1.8 million in damages.
