LeetRantipole wrote:Yep: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/in-other-news/t+mobile-owns-magenta-319824.php
Man, they are really messed up. I'd like to call attention to:
"T-Mobile, the T-Mobile logo,... the T-Mobile acoustic logo, and the color magenta are registered and/or unregistered trademarks..."
I wish I could underline the term "unregistered trademarks" but I can only figure out how to make it bold, which only slightly shows up. That phrase brings up the question, which is an unregistered trademark and which is a registered trademark? My guess, color magenta is unregistered. Also, I don't think that will hold up in court, as long as the company T-Mobile sues isn't another phone company. An unregistered trademark may (key here is may) be considered a protected trademark from what I understand. Sadly, I have too much work on a Title VII paper to look into this one.
So I searched through published case opinion involving Nintendo as the plaintiff (the one suing) and here is the result (Note: I only looked at federal cases because Copyright is a federal issue. And honestly, as a corporation, Nintendo has a better chance suing in a federal court than a state court. Besides, why sue in a state court when you are dealing with a federal issue?):
Nintendo of America, Inc. v. NTDEC, 51 F.3d 281 (9th Cir. 1995) - Nintendo sues NTDEC for reproducing, repackaging, and selling the counterfeit games. I personally feel this is an obvious copyright infringement. (court did too)
Nintendo of America, Inc. v. Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc., 16 F.3d 1032 (9th Cir. 1994) - Nintendo sells for the creation and distribution of the Game Genie. Game Genie won this one.
Nintendo of America, Inc. v. Dragon Pacific Intern., 40 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 1994) - Nintendo sues a manufacturer of a gaming console very similar to the NES that created game cartridges with more than 10 games on each cartridge, many of which were copyrighted Nintendo games. Nintendo Won.
And to prevent this from getting too long, the rest of the cases where Nintendo Sued involved more copyright infringement where someone was trying to sell a Nintendo game unlawfully and a case with Nintendo challenging a patent which someone claimed they infringed. Note: none of the cases I found were after 1996. This doesn't mean cases don't exist in which Nintendo sued, it just means those court decisions weren't published by the judge. But for the most part, the infringement cases dealt with actual copying of a game made by Nintendo.
And as a random side note, check out the wikipedia article on when Universal sued nintendo in the 80s for copyright infringement on their movie King Kong. They lost. Silly Universal. I point you to a wikipedia article, because you'd have to pay to access a legal database.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_City_Studios,_Inc._v._Nintendo_Co.,_Ltd.
