Many of them used the word Ping-Pong in their names, but after Parker Brothers enforced its trademark, they had to drop the word. In , the U. Table Tennis team traveled to China as part of a mission to build better relations between the two countries. Escalade Sports, an Indiana-based sports equipment company, acquired the trademark to Ping-Pong in the s. The company now licenses use of the term to other organizations that want to use Ping-Pong to refer to table tennis.
Some commonly used terms can lose their trademark status by becoming generic terms. This happens when a certain brand name becomes so closely associated with a particular product that people stop using generic terms for it. Some examples are yo-yo, linoleum and aspirin, which were all once trademarked and are now generic terms.
Escalade Sports, the current trademark holder of Ping-Pong, clearly considers Ping-Pong a trademarked term. The company has also litigated to keep its trademark. Read more on common word trademarks. Sandman argued that Ping-Pong, like yo-yo and other terms that were once trademarked, should be considered a generic term for table tennis.
The case was settled. Today, about million people play table tennis. It is now an official Olympic sport and the national sport of China. One could argue that Magnavox had no legal claim to the game of table tennis itself, and its creation was just a means by which to electronically simulate that game, using processes Atari had engineered on its own.
But despite the fact that Pong could be seen as an advertisement for the game console more than for a competitor, Magnavox sued. Years before Baer developed his idea, William Higinbotham at the Brookhaven National Laboratory built what is now believed to be the first video game, Tennis for Two , to run on an analog computer.
Issue 2. Issue 3. Issue 4. Issue 5. Issue 6. Pong is boring. Pong clones are boring too. I'm sure you can come up with a unique, interesting twist on it that will take it to the next level. The issue is about "Brand". Atari has created a brand around 'Pong' and invested in the brand.
If you are creating a game that wants to leverage that brand so that others will be interested in playing it, for example using 'Pong' in the name then you will likely draw the attention of the brand owner - in this case Atari. If the game is pong like but has different attributes I suggest naming it something that highlights those attributes. Keep in mind the more your game looks like - identical graphics - name - the more likely you are going to infringe on their 'brand'.
I guess it depends on what Atari put under copyright.. For example Tetris is not only copyrighted by the name, the shape of the blocks is copyrighted aswell as the size of the area where the blocks go. That means that if you do a Tetris clone you could call it any way you like, but if it uses the same shapes and the "wall area" has the same width and height, you are up for a copyright infringement.
I wonder if there's some place where you could check if anything is copyrighted, like names for starters. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.
Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Does a pong clone called "Ping" infringe on any copyrights or trademarks? Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 11 months ago. Active 6 years, 7 months ago. Viewed 11k times. Improve this question. Alexis King Alexis King 2 2 gold badges 5 5 silver badges 11 11 bronze badges. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes.
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