UltraCade wins AMOA 2005 Innovation Award

[Stingray]

I noticed you pulled ahead of me in post count, must be all the bacon talk.

A powerful ally is bacon.

-S

[ChadTower]

I get most of my posts in encouraging Stingray and keeping shmokes busy.

Without me to accuse of pulling facts out of my orifices, he would be running the streets.  It's like midnight basketball for paralegals.

[Grasshopper]

Had someone else come along, and filed a TM on MAME, the MAME team would no longer own it.  Had I wished to keep the TM, I could have said nothing and the USPTO would have issued the TM without a single person knowing about it.

Maybe, but as soon as you tried to prosecute someone for infringing your TM rights you'd be laughed out of court. I mean it's laughably easy to prove that the MAME logo has already been in use for many years and that your company has no genuine connection with the trademark.

Actually, it could happen.
Say someone tried to trademark mame but didn't do anything, just applied and let it go through the process hoping no one is searching the trademark office for mame.  It would have become registered.  Then that person could have started doing stuff with the name.  I doubt the mame team has the funding or legal resources to defend against it after that point.

Yes but Foley's rationale wasn't that he could use the MAME logo for himself but that he could prevent others from using it.

It's pointless for Foley to get the MAME TM registered in his name and then do nothing further. He would also have had to be proactive in launching legal action against other commercial entities using the MAME logo (but not necessarily claiming it as their own) who may have had the resources and motivation to defend themselves.

Basically it's highly likely his bluff would have been called.

[ChadTower]

Basically it's highly likely his bluff would have been called.

Among small businesses, this is a very common tactic.  Give me what I want or I sue, and we both know you can't afford an attorney.

[davidrfoley]

Grasshopper, the MAMEDEV team was neither paid off nor afraid of me.  Instead, they acknowledged my offer to help, and unlike many naysayers here, believed that what I was saying.  I offered to pay for the legal fees to get the TM filed for Nicola, they didn't take me up on it.  They know that many people were using MAME to make commerical products, and outright selling them as MAME cabinets, with illegal games.  They wanted to ensure the longevity of MAME, and to do that, distancing themselves from software pirates was a good thing.  They have become diligent in making sure that it is not used to commercially promote piracy, and in doing so ensuring support from people like myself. 

Obviously I am a big fan of classic gaming, I have built an entire company around it.  I continue to provide the community with support (both product and financial)  I understand that there is great power in a community such as this one, for both ideas and actual products.  I also know that a majority of our profits do not come from this community, nor its members.  We make a lot more profit on every Arcade Legends that we sell than we do on selling an I/O card.  Nonetheless, we will continue to develop and sell our I/O cards for this community as it helps spur classic gaming in general, and who knows, maybe something cool will come of it. 

I have a company to run, and I have invested a lot of time on this thread and others.  If my plan was to just take advantage of the community or the MAMEteam or others, I wouldn't spend a moment here, as there is no direct benefit for me taking the time.  However, I do wish to work with people on this forum and others to make sure that our business continues, and that the industry as a whole survives. 

Am I in this for money, yes I am.  But so what.  Everyone here has to put a roof over thier head and food on the table.  I've chosen to do it building video games.  Everyone has a job, mine happens to be based in part by selling classic arcade games.  I also do this becuase I really enjoy it.  I spent years doing it before I ever sold a unit.  I will continue to do so.

[davidrfoley]

Stingray, looks a bit crispy!  There is a future for you in Evil Corporate Poster Art I do believe.

[ChadTower]

I've only seen one Ultracade in person.

[Stingray]

Stingray, looks a bit crispy!  There is a future for you in Evil Corporate Poster Art I do believe.

I've always wanted to be evil and corporate, but I don't think I'm tall enough. Was that a job offer?

I've only seen one Ultracade in person.  It was beaten to crap an barely worked.  Most of the games in that arcade were.

Thus, I've never had the opportunity to try an Ultracade product.

I have to admit that I've never seen one in person at all.

-S

[paigeoliver]

I've only seen one Ultracade in person.  It was beaten to crap an barely worked.  Most of the games in that arcade were.

Thus, I've never had the opportunity to try an Ultracade product.

I have encountered two of them, Dave & Buster's St. Louis has one and the arcade at the Ameristar Casino has one.

Both of them have shoddy "Ultimate" joysticks on them that ruin the gaming experience.

Although I can't seem to get the management at anyplace to CARE about the condition of their machines.

At Dave & Busters (my most frequent hangout).

Both Star Wars Trilogy machines have hacked together joysticks that barely work, have cracked grips and often have one of the two buttons dead. And one of the two machines has a dead event button.

Their Pump it Up machine has some strange problem that often causes it to start frameskipping and thus become unplayable.

Their Derby Owner's Club (in the past month) has started getting "network error" and having to be reboot on an hourly basis. And one of the 8 pods has been down with a defective reader for that stupid little Dave & Busters' card for over a month.

Their Ms. Pac-Man reunion machine magically grew a Happ Super joystick one day.

The Ultracade has "Ultimate" joysticks on it, and the screen is always off-centered to the right, making a small portion of the screen unviewable which ruins certain games. The technicians act like they don't know how to fix THAT and they just reboot the machine when I bring it to their attention.

I dunno what the deal is with the Derby club or the Pump it Up, but there is no excuse for the Star Wars of the Ms. Pac machine. Those 5 games are all I ever played there and now all 5 of them are defective.

Oh, they also used to have a few pins, both had major problems, but they pulled them a long time ago.

I used to go to "The Tilt" at the mall, but I stopped going after I did a survey of the place on my last trip and found that EVERY SINGLE MACHINE was broken in some way or another. There were only 2 exceptions, which was a pair of the latest Capcom fighters that worked perfectly.

[CheffoJeffo]

I've only seen one Ultracade in person.  It was beaten to crap an barely worked.  Most of the games in that arcade were.

Thus, I've never had the opportunity to try an Ultracade product.

As a matter of fact, I saw two Ultracade cabinets (one of them a trackball version) as well as an Arcade Legends cabinet earlier today when I was at Starburst picking up some parts. All in good condition, but I did not have a chance to play any of them ... maybe I'll have a go when I'm there nextweek for the next auction.

Cheers.

[SirPoonga]

Grasshopper, the MAMEDEV team was neither paid off nor afraid of me.  Instead, they acknowledged my offer to help, and unlike many naysayers here, believed that what I was saying.  I offered to pay for the legal fees to get the TM filed for Nicola, they didn't take me up on it.  They know that many people were using MAME to make commerical products, and outright selling them as MAME cabinets, with illegal games.  They wanted to ensure the longevity of MAME, and to do that, distancing themselves from software pirates was a good thing.  They have become diligent in making sure that it is not used to commercially promote piracy, and in doing so ensuring support from people like myself. 

Right, but if they have illegal games why do you need the mame name to shut them down?  It's the games that were illegal, not mame.

[SirPoonga]

Although I can't seem to get the management at anyplace to CARE about the condition of their machines.

That sound like the problem more than any problems with the product.

[ChadTower]

Right, but if they have illegal games why do you need the mame name to shut them down?

[Grasshopper]

Right, but if they have illegal games why do you need the mame name to shut them down?  It's the games that were illegal, not mame.

In order to shut them down, he has to have legal standing.  Having legal standing means he has to own something relevant.  He can't enforce Atari's IP rights if Atari doesn't bother.  There is no IP police you can call to file charges.  That is why he needed to either own the trademark itself or to have the MAME team own and defend it.

Then why not get Atari to agree to let him act on their behalf? He's paid Atari so he can use their IP rights, this type of thing should have been part of the agreement.

[Grasshopper]

Grasshopper, the MAMEDEV team was neither paid off nor afraid of me.  Instead, they acknowledged my offer to help, and unlike many naysayers here, believed that what I was saying.  I offered to pay for the legal fees to get the TM filed for Nicola, they didn't take me up on it.  They know that many people were using MAME to make commerical products, and outright selling them as MAME cabinets, with illegal games.  They wanted to ensure the longevity of MAME, and to do that, distancing themselves from software pirates was a good thing.  They have become diligent in making sure that it is not used to commercially promote piracy, and in doing so ensuring support from people like myself. 

I guess I'll have to take your word for that but it does seem odd that at first they ignored your emails and then suddenly did a complete U-turn and embraced your idea. What I wonder caused the change of heart? And what was in it for them? They don't need to trademark the MAME logo to distance themselves from pirates.

Let me approach this issue from a different angle. You've indicated that you're in this for the money and there is nothing basically wrong with that. But in this context don't you think it would have been more appropriate to have entered into a proper commercial arrangement with the mamedevs, and paid not just their legal fees, but a hefty amount on top of that as compensation for their cooperation which they were under no obligation to give. If a commercial organisation asks me to help them then I expect to get paid.

I guess it's possible you offered them this type of arrangement and they turned you down. But something just doesn't add up here. I feel we're not getting the full story.

[SirPoonga]

Right, but if they have illegal games why do you need the mame name to shut them down?  It's the games that were illegal, not mame.

In order to shut them down, he has to have legal standing.  Having legal standing means he has to own something relevant.  He can't enforce Atari's IP rights if Atari doesn't bother.  There is no IP police you can call to file charges.  That is why he needed to either own the trademark itself or to have the MAME team own and defend it.

But it an auction claimed they could play thousands of game and one of them was Ladybug or Mr. Do?

Like you said, if they were Midway and Atari games couldn't he get Midway and Atari to do something?

As for the auctions had had characters he didn;t need mame for that?

[davidrfoley]

MAME is not for sale. 

[SirPoonga]

MAME is not for sale. 

Right but replace Atari with mame  with what chadtower said

"In order to shut them down, he has to have legal standing.  Having legal standing means he has to own something relevant.  He can't enforce MAME's IP rights if MAME doesn't bother.  There is no IP police you can call to file charges.  That is why he needed to either own the trademark itself or to have the MAME team own and defend it."

You still didn't own MAME, it was pending, so how could you enforce it?

[stratjakt]

Look for the common ground, folks.

I think we can all agree that Mr Do sucks, no matter who owns it.

[ChadTower]

But it an auction claimed they could play thousands of game and one of them was Ladybug or Mr. Do?

Realistically, what percentage of those auctions actually said Ladybug or Mr. Do?

[davidrfoley]

We can definitely not agree on that.  Mr. DO! is one of the all time greatest games ever produced. 

[stratjakt]

Again with the lies!

Everyone knows that nothing produced prior to September 23 1999 is worth playing, unless it was from Nintendo.

[ChadTower]

I like Mr Do.  Excellent game.

[davidrfoley]

now we are just being silly.  Nothing before 1999?  There was a lot more great stuff produced before 1999 than after 1999, that is for sure.

[stratjakt]

You're correct, of course, the Dreamcast lauched on Sept 9, 1999, ushering out the era of video games that suck.

[Stingray]

Mr. DO! is one of the all time greatest games ever produced. 

Holy flying monkey poop! I never thought I'd say this, but I agree with you 100% on that count.

Speaking of Mr. Do, can I sell a Mr. Do console cart on ebay without paying liscence fees? Just curious, I'd never let go of anything Mr. Do related.

-S

[ChadTower]

The cart IS your license, so yes, you could, sarcasm boy.

[Stingray]

The cart IS your license, so yes, you could, sarcasm boy.

I learned it all from you Master Debater.

-S

[SirPoonga]

But it an auction claimed they could play thousands of game and one of them was Ladybug or Mr. Do?

Realistically, what percentage of those auctions actually said Ladybug or Mr. Do?  None of them gave an outright list, and he could only go after those that advertised as infringing on his IP.  The only way to go after one of those "it has 4000 romz0rz" auctions would be to buy the damn thing and THEN sue them when it came with his IP on it.

Ok, I understand that. 
With all that said, how can he could issue ceise and desist letters to companies, only stating they infringe on the mame trademark that was his pending.
Basically how can he enforce something that wasn't his yet?
The people that did realize the trademark was only pending, what happened to them?

Other than that I think all the questions have been answered?


FYI, Mr. DO! is one of the best games ever made.  My friend's dad has a Universal one in his basement
stratjakt, stop trying to stir the pot with the video games suck thing, that has no relevance here.

[Thenasty]

Again with the lies!

LOL   

[davidrfoley]

Stingray, at least put my full name in the quote, David R. Foley, that way they won't think the quote from the Kids in the Hall

[ChadTower]

Ok, I understand that.

[Stingray]

Sorry, due to the restrictions of the forum software, I couldn't fit your middle initial in the allocated space. I'm pretty sure no one will misunderstand, but I'll see if I can wrangle it in.

-S

[Stingray]

I had to do away with the color tag to make room, but I did it anyway because I don't want to get smacked with a C&D.

-S

[SirPoonga]

David R. Foley,

I'm satisfied with the current answer to the mame trademark thing now.  With that last it was just a bullying attempt to get the people that didn't realize the patent was pending yet.  Touche for making it work.


Would you mind commenting on the last half of post #111?
To sum up:

As a home consumer why would I be interested in your home consumer products?
Could I use your current home consumer products in an existing cabinet? as most of use here already have a cabinet.
How woud your Arcade Legends Midway game pack be different than using a Midway treasure collection (which the readme says is emulated form arcade) and they are pretty much the same games?

[Havok]

Mr. DO! is one of the all time greatest games ever produced.

[davidrfoley]

You can't use our software in a home cabinet.  Arcade Legends runs on a proprietary system and OS.  The game packs will only load into that system.  Arcade Legends and Ultimate Arcade are geared towards those people that don't have the skill or the desire to "do it themselves" and just want a turnkey solution. 

For BYOAC type users we will soon have our version of StarROMs called iROMs that will allow people to get legal copies of a lot of the games that we sell.  We are working closely with the MAMEDEV team on many of our products.  We also have a new lightgun board that has been completed that works with real coin-op guns like those from Happ Controls.  We have recently submitted our USBlinx JAMMA I/O PC Interface and uVC Video Interface to Kevin Steele for an impartial review.

[davidrfoley]

We don't shut down auctions of legitmate original products.  If you are selling an original PCB, or game, we don't have any issue with that.  We only shut down auctions that infringe on our rights.

[stratjakt]

You can sell your Mr Do, just don't expect to get much for it.

[Stingray]

You can sell your Mr Do, just don't expect to get much for it.

Dude, seriously, what are you even doing on site that's primarily geared toward classic gaming?

-S