Nintendo sued Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc with the belief that its Game Genie device infringes on Nintendo's copyrighted games, by creating derivative works each time it is used in conjunction with both the Nintendo console and corresponding games. The District Court however, did not agree with Nintendo on this matter. Upon examination of the way in which the Game Genie interacts with both the Nintendo games and the Nintendo system, it was found that the device only serves to temporarily "enhance" said games, and therefore does not infringe upon Nintendo's existing copyrighted material. Not only was there no permanence, but the Game Genie was found to merely interfere with the signal between the Nintendo system and the game itself, which would not allow it to alter the source code of the game being played.
Nintendo appealed with the argument that the Court should focus on the visual elements produced, which they claimed to be derivative works. The court discusses the fact that improvement is laudable, while replacement is not. The spell checker for a word processing program is used as an example of a positive improvement/enhancement. And with that, the subject of fair use was taken into account, and the functions of the Game Genie were scrutinized in relation to the four factors that allow for fair use to be claimed. If in fact the Game Genie was determined to create derivative works, then the question was, would they be allowed under the factors of fair use?
The out come was a positive one for Galoob. The Game Genie's temporary derivative works were determined to be non-commercial, and they were not found to cost Nintendo any loss of profit. Therefore, no injunction was granted to Nintendo.
This case is an interesting one because of the fact that the Court discussed the coding of the games, which proves that there is a growing understanding of such technology among court officials. In addition, it shows a progression of Copyright law which allows it to accommodate new technologies.

Serving as a focal point to my paper, this work entitled "The Adaptation of Copyright Law to Video Games" discusses the growth of competition that is a result of growth within the video game market, and the desperate need for copyright law that will accurately protect video games against infringement. Hemnes considers how copyright law may not accurately represent the creativity that goes into creating video games, as the Copyright Act does not protect games, method of operation, ideas, and so on. All in all, there were at the time of this publication, definite limits to copyright in terms of software protection. Hemnes goes on to describe each "blackletter law" of the copyright act in relation to video games, starting with the law that games are not protected under copyright provision. There is a certain problem in that a game can be considered "unoriginal" in that it has certain "obvious" elements to its game play, such as a car in a racing game, or lasers within a space game. However, Hemnes notes that the programming behind such aspects is of utmost importance, and should be regarded as copyrightable material in that it required hard work and skill on the behalf of the programmer.
Hemnes used several cases to illustrate his point that in most early cases, video games are either over or under-protected. Cases such as the Pac Man or Galaxian cases are used as examples in which copyright law applies differently to video games than it would to another medium, such as literature. Although not mentioned within the text, the novel "The Wind Done Gone" is an example of a derivative work that could be considered to have undergone a similar case. However, while the novel was considered fair use, the speeding up of the game Galaxian was not.
What is most important, Hemnes argues, is the preservation of originality and expression of ideas, which in his conclusion he believes could be better achieved through more careful analysis of the effects that video games have upon elements of the fair use doctrine. Considering my paper focuses on the ever growing complexities of video game and computer game software, it is important to take into account early video game cases and the obvious flaws in their litigation.