Atari Interactive, Inc. v. Nestlé,
SA
No.
3:17-CV-04803-SK (N.D. Cal. Aug. 17, 2017)
On August 17, 2017, Atari
Interactive sued
Nestlé, alleging that a Nestlé
KIT KAT® advertisement titled “Kit Kat: Breakout” infringed Atari’s rights
relating to the video game Breakout. Specifically,
Atari has sued Nestlé for trademark and copyright infringement, false
designation of origin, dilution, and both state and common law unfair
competition.
Like many early Atari
games, Breakout has a storied
history. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell originally conceptualized Breakout. As noted by
Atari’s Complaint, Steve Jobs and (“[i]n reality”) Steve Wozniak reduced Breakout
from 100-175 chips down to 20-30 chips, allowing Breakout to be produced much more cheaply. Some of the reward money earned
by Jobs and Wozniak by improving Breakout
was used to form Apple, and many of Wozniak’s innovations from the Breakout circuit board were used in
developing the Apple II personal computer.
Nestlé’s “Kit Kat:
Breakout” advertisement depicts four adults on a couch holding video game
controllers and playing what appears to be a Breakout-style video game on a television in a train station:
Per
its complaint, Atari appears particularly worried that Nestlé’s association with various
scandals may be
falsely imputed to Atari. This is
particularly the case because Atari heavily relies on its brand recognition to
expand into new markets. For example,
most recently, Atari has been heavily promoting both a new
throwback console
as well as Atari-branded “speakerhats” (which are exactly
what the name suggests).
Ed. - I checked and it's too late to get into the speakerhats beta.
Thanks to Kirk Sigmon for preparing this post
