"Astrocade sues Commodore and Atari"
By Barry Bayer
"Infoworld," June 28, 1982: 1.


CHICAGO, IL - Astrocade, a Columbus, Ohio, manufacturer of video games and 
microcomputers, announced the filing of a patent-infringement lawsuit against 
Atari and Commodore at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York, 
claims that Atari and Commodore are using two patents licensed exclusively to 
Astrocade that deal with bitmapped graphics for video display. Bit-mapping aids 
in producing high-resolution graphics.

The suit requests damages of an unspecified amount, plus the issuance of an 
injunction against the defendants prohibiting them from using patents number 
4,296,930 and 4,301,503. Each patent was issued late last year to Jeffrey 
Frederiksen and assigned to Bally Manufacturing Company, which Astrocade claims 
licensed the patents exclusively to Astrocade.

Astrocade's counsel declined to specify the Commodore or Atari machines that 
are claimed to infringe the patents, stating that it would be unethical to 
disclose this information in the complaint.

He did state that Astrocade had asked patent-holder Bally to join the suit, but 
Bally refused to do so, so Astrocade made Bally an "involuntary plaintiff" in 
the suit.

As is usual in a case involving a new patent, preliminary injunctive relief was 
not requested. Astrocade did not identify the amount of damages.

Atari spokesman J. Peter Nelson responded that the suit was "without merit." 
Commodore spokesman David Kaminer said the company was still waiting to look at 
the suit before commenting, but noted the timing of the suit during CES would 
help Astrocade obtain publicity.