Re: Pinball Patents & Copyrights - Let's take this head on

On Aug 25, 10:30 pm, c...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Aug 25, 7:49 am, Expat <tenbeersb...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On Aug 25, 6:05 am, MIKE PAYNE <mike...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 25, 4:42 am, Expat <tenbeersb...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 25, 3:43 am, Chris Evans <ev...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 07:29:28 -0700, sa...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Also why is the new Gottlieb remake not using a Stern Cabinet now?

Because it would look very, very wrong, Dickhead. Now go back to
stealing money for imaginary pinball machines from gullible idiots.
It's the only thing you're good at.

Sorry guys you're wasting your $$$.An opinion from a lawyer,is just
that an opinion.If you really want to get an answer you're gonna need
somewhere around 20k to maybe over 100k to test your opinion in the
court system.

Anyone ever run this guys IP address? I swear you sound like Wayne...
Who exactly are you?

Google is your friend.I'm not Wayne.Just trying to help w/ the
situation.An hour w/ a lawyer isn't gonna change a thing.The reality
of IP law is that if you want to challenge someone's IP rights,you'd
better be prepared to shell out big $$$ in the courts doing it.If you
really think otherwise,welcome to reality.

Unfortunately he's right. Opinions don't matter
unless they are the opinions of the court.

Fortunately, it would also take serious money/time
from EITHER party to defend or attack someone
in court. If there's no case (based on lawyers
opinions), they won't go forward (because it's a
waste of time/money).

Sending out cease/desist letters costs next to
nothing. Infact, you could send that out without
a lawyer.

So far, no one has wanted to deal with the
potential financial impact of going to court,
so usually the C&D letter is all that is needed.

What really needs to happen is someone that is
willing to "call the C&D bluff", and let the rights
"owner" move past the C&D stage. So far, no
one has been willing to do that (besides Gene).
My opinion is that Dotty would fall flat in court.
It's a house of cards, and it would only take one
person to make the house of cards fall. But so
far no one has been willing to risk it. Dotty,
so it appears, doesn't have the right to enforce
anything. WMS only has those rights. And
they're using Dotty as their strong-arm to
scare all the whimps aways. I highly doubt
WMS would go much beyond a C&D in most
sitations. But so far no one is willing to take
them on.

On the issue of cabinet remakes, my opinion
is you can do whatever you want in wood. Just
don't put on stickers, and don't put any metal
hardware on the cabinet. Sell a bare-bones
wood cab, and let the new owner transfer his
original parts (or buy new ones) to the new wood.
I don't think there would be any issues with that.

In fact, if Dotty/Gene had half a brain, they
would ENCOURAGE this project. Because it
only sells more of their cabinet decals! It's
like free money. To tell those people to stop
making cabinets would be insanely stupid,
from a financial point of view. But of course
Dotty is insane, and makes stupid business
decisions based on revenge/emotions,
so who knows what that nut would do.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

As usual Clay you like the sound of your own voice.

First of all the problems we had with Big Time Cabinets were the
pirate artwork they were fitting to the cabinets, the other issue is
in fact several patents they were in breach of.

One was when they made Twilight Zone Cabinets, the leg holes in the
cabinet are at an adjustable angle which has a patent.

The other was the rear latch which also when fitted has a patent.

There was the playfield slide and a number of other patents.

Now those patents cost about $2,000 to $4,000 each renewal and we have
78 so why should we pay renewal fees for someone else to breach them.

Our patents are able to license out, at no time was any offer to
license made.

Stern license several of these patents, and the patents need to be
protected and enforced.

Now a C&D was sent at a substantial cost by a Lawyer in the US, now if
they continued to breach the patents we would have taken them to court
regardless of the cost.

We have managed to work with a number of suppliers and help get
products out, these people also need our protection from non approved
products.

The problem here is nobody just wants a cabinet, they want it complete
and with artwork and hardware fitted.

There is more approved cabinet art out there than ever before, so if
someone want's to mak cabinets they can contact me or Gene and arrange
a deal.

You will find we would supply them with product at a better price than
they would normally be paying.

We can also supply them with original cad files to make them
correctly.

None of that info was worth anything to Big Time Cabinets at the time,
they just kept saying they never did this or that, while people were
reporting them to us.

Now spend your $250 a hour like we do and search the patents and spend
the money to see what you can and cannot do.

Like we did with the MM patents we knew before rather than later when
it could have cost us


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