"That said, does anyone know the current position of the College Bowl folks? It seems they have been quiet as of late. It has been generally accepted by us circuit-folk that if NAQT or a similar organization were to attempt to be televised on a large scale (is this even a long-term goal of NAQT?), the threats would likely resume. Perhaps we have simply reached a detente of sorts." So said Ross... AFAIK, The last I heard about the situation was that CBCI felt that it had the legal precedence to support a lawsuit againt NAQT, but until a media contract entered the picture, lacked the financial incentive to do it. I can't imagine NAQT turns much of a profit (it doesn't even have a full time employee), and CBCI has nothing to gain by sueing as yet. CBCI's case, IIRC, rests in a Los Angeles, CA taco restaurant case, where one restaurant sued a nearby restaurant on the grounds that the second restaurant had copied the menu concept of the first. The plaintiff won in that case. On the NAQT side, there's the case of Parker Brothers v. Irvin Hentzil et. al. (yes, R.'s father) the later being the developer of a game known as "Anti-monopoly." The defendants won this case, which backed up the notion that only specific game materials can be copyrighted, not a game concept. This opened the door for the "In-a-box" series of games which are a direct rip-off of Monopoly. Also on NAQT's side, are the "look-and-feel" legal battles between Microsoft and Apple over their respective operating system. I can't remember if that one ever went to litigation, but again, justice triumphed on the side of the defendedants, when it was decided that one cannot copyright the look and feel of a product, only specific textual materials contained therein. I probably got some of the details wrong there, but that's where the case stands the last time I heard about it. Any one out there wanna elaborate more? On the side of sense, one has to wonder if the decendants of Walter Camp (or the NCAA, which he helped found) can sue the NFL, the CFL, and the Arena League for copying the "concept" of american football. This is exactly what CBCI is claiming...
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:42 AM EST EST