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Who owns the "multiball" trademark?
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<blockquote data-quote="Zaphod77" data-source="post: 147786" data-attributes="member: 2101"><p>Yeah, Williams licensed the trademark on Multi-Ball before they went down. They threw in the towel when it was clear that Data East would still be able to put multiball in their games and call it something else. the intent of that trademark was to make it so only they could make pinball games with multiball in it. That didn't work. When Data East came up with "M-BALL" for 6 ball multiball, they realized their plan to put a stranglehold wasn't gonna work, so they decided to license instead to make money that way. </p><p></p><p>Their most annoying patent was on software compensation, or dynamically changing the rules to make the game playable when parts broke. Again this died when williams got out of pinball. Premiere used a static form with ramps that raise and lower, so you always got credit for what was lit there even if it was in the wrong position. Because the rules didn't actually change, this was not prevented by the patent. This patent meant that if the control room blade switch broke on jurassic park the game couldn't compensate for it in any way, which means chaos super jackpots were impossible to collect ever and there was no way to start modes. They DID manage to keep a stranglehold on this one.</p><p></p><p>Other fun patents include the one on picking up the ball with a magnet that williams had and refused to license (that Premiere got around by raising the ball up to the magnet in rescue 911), the one on mechanically lifting the ball the Data East got in retaliation and refused to license (used in Jurassic Park), and the combo plunger (which i believe data east had and then licensed out willingly before the whole multiball fiasco).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Zaphod77, post: 147786, member: 2101"] Yeah, Williams licensed the trademark on Multi-Ball before they went down. They threw in the towel when it was clear that Data East would still be able to put multiball in their games and call it something else. the intent of that trademark was to make it so only they could make pinball games with multiball in it. That didn't work. When Data East came up with "M-BALL" for 6 ball multiball, they realized their plan to put a stranglehold wasn't gonna work, so they decided to license instead to make money that way. Their most annoying patent was on software compensation, or dynamically changing the rules to make the game playable when parts broke. Again this died when williams got out of pinball. Premiere used a static form with ramps that raise and lower, so you always got credit for what was lit there even if it was in the wrong position. Because the rules didn't actually change, this was not prevented by the patent. This patent meant that if the control room blade switch broke on jurassic park the game couldn't compensate for it in any way, which means chaos super jackpots were impossible to collect ever and there was no way to start modes. They DID manage to keep a stranglehold on this one. Other fun patents include the one on picking up the ball with a magnet that williams had and refused to license (that Premiere got around by raising the ball up to the magnet in rescue 911), the one on mechanically lifting the ball the Data East got in retaliation and refused to license (used in Jurassic Park), and the combo plunger (which i believe data east had and then licensed out willingly before the whole multiball fiasco). [/QUOTE]
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Who owns the "multiball" trademark?
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