Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Universal v. Nintendo
Court	United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Full case name	Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Decided	December 22, 1983
Citation(s)	578 F. Supp. 911
Court membership
Judge sitting	Robert W. Sweet

Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was a 1983 legal case heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. In their complaint, Universal Studios alleged that Nintendo's video game Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of King Kong, the plot and characters of which Universal claimed as their own. Nintendo argued that Universal had themselves proven that King Kong's plot and characters were in the public domain in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc.

Sweet ruled that Universal had acted in bad faith by threatening Nintendo's licensees and that it had no right over the name King Kong or the characters and story. He further held that there was no possibility for consumers to confuse Nintendo's game and characters with the King Kong films and their characters. Universal appealed the case, but the verdict was upheld. The case was a major victory for Nintendo, which was still a newcomer to the U.S. market. The case established Nintendo as a major player in the industry and arguably gave the company the confidence that it could compete with the giants of American media.^[1]