Trial of the Space Invaders
The Case that Changed Video Games
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Trial of the Space Invaders
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Simon Parkin
New York, 1988. A lawsuit between Nintendo and American electronics company Magnavox is playing out in federal court. The outcome of this trial—which will be kept secret for decades—will change the industry forever and set in motion the fiercest rivalry in video game history.
The facts of the case were these: In 1966, Ralph Baer, an inventor for the US defense contractor Sanders, devised a way to turn an ordinary TV set into a machine for playing games. Before anyone understood this emerging technology, his employer secured a set of broad-ranging patents and granted Magnavox the exclusive right to exploit them. As the video game industry grew, Magnavox extracted more than $100 million in licensing fees from its rivals—then set its sights on Nintendo, newly arrived in American homes.
The Japanese corporation fought back with an explosive allegation that threatened to unravel the validity of the patents. They argued that Baer’s invention had been preceded by another—Spacewar, created at MIT and later brought to Stanford—and that Magnavox had known about it. Had their lawyer deliberately concealed Spacewar’s existence from the patent office? If Nintendo could prove it, Magnavox’s licensing empire might collapse. But if Magnavox prevailed, Nintendo might see the sale of its games and consoles frozen.
Combining deep archival research, vivid first-person investigation, and the pace of a courtroom thriller, Trial of the Space Invaders is a gripping narrative history of ambition, invention, and betrayal, and of the long shadow cast by intellectual property over the world’s most popular entertainment industry.
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