Universal sues Nintendo over the rights to King Kong, claiming that Nintendo's Donkey Kong character directly infringed upon their giant ape character of a similar name. In retaliation, Nintendo made a counterclaim that a King Kong game licensed to Tiger electronics was directly infringing upon their copyright of Donkey Kong. The court ended up in favor of Nintendo, and so Universal appealed their claim. However, there really were no grounds for this suit, as Universal failed obtain and include the actual film(s) of King Kong as the subjects of infringement. Instead, Universal was basically producing a claim that Nintendo was infringing upon their "mascot" or image of the gorilla who possesses a woman, which they believed to be copyright protected. Considering the likelihood of consumer confusion between Donkey Kong and King Kong, the Court determined that the chances of someone believing Donkey Kong to be King Kong were slim to none. Many factors were brought into question, such as the temperament and disposition of the characters in question, along with the medium of the work, and even the sophistication of the consumer. Donkey Kong, while still a giant gorilla, had a much different temperament than King Kong. While King Kong was ferocious and domineering, Donkey Kong is almost loveable and sympathetic, making him if anything, a parody of King Kong. In addition, a survey was conducted among owners of the arcade game in order to answer the question of whether or not there was any confusion between the characters, although flaws in the survey left it inconclusive. And so it was determined that the characters were indeed different, and so Universal was not granted injunctive relief.
This lawsuit has bearing on my paper because it brings forth the subject of graphics in games, and how a pixilated image can be argued to be an infringement of an object or character within ulterior media. It also documents the success of the video game industry, as a large company such as Universal would certainly not make such an obviously fruitless claim if it did not anticipate competition from the defendant company.