[Katsuya]

Source: ZD.

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David R. Foley, the CEO of Ultracade (who has no affiliation with MAME whatsoever,) has now trademarked the name and logo that has been used by MAME for the past eight years. It had been said that he planed to file suit against the authors of MAME. but that No longer seems to be the case.

-update-

Ultracade has posted two new statements regarding MAME (in PDF format) on the front of their webpage. read them at the web site of Ultracade --> http://www.ultracade.com/

other info.

Link --> US Patent and Trademark Office website. MAME entry http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=76627578


I dug this up, in case anyone wanted to know. Contact information, personal website, and resume of David R. Foley. (Founder & CEO of Ultracade) --> http://www.davidrfoley.com/

He is also, Vice President / Chief Technical Officer of HyperWare, Inc. --> www.hyperware.com


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[RZetlin]

If David R. Foley just trademark the name MAME now, then he is such a prick!

 

[cooliscool]

... God.

I've got no words for the idiocy..

 

[xRock]

Damn that S.O.B i hope he loses the case and is sentenced to jail.....

Umm.. what is he trying to use it for?

 

[cooliscool]

Well. Ultracade makes arcade cabinets that run multiple arcade machine games in one cabinet, so I'd imagine they want the acronym "Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator" .. which is stupid IMO. AFAIK, Ultracade uses emulation to pull this off although I'm not sure if they use MAME.

 

[ShadowDancer]

Well. Ultracade makes arcade cabinets that run multiple arcade machine games in one cabinet, so I'd imagine they want the acronym "Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator" .. which is stupid IMO. AFAIK, Ultracade uses emulation to pull this off although I'm not sure if they use MAME.

Heh wouldn't that be ironic if they did.

 

[KanedA]

what a looser :angry: someone burn his balls...

 

[Seta-San]

there's no way that copywrite/trademark could ever hold up in a court of law. mame has always been a free product.

 

[F-3582]

What is he planning to achieve by that lawsuit? To force the MAME team to to contribute all their results to Ultracade? To force them to stop their project? To force them to abandon that name and logo?

IMO the only thing that lawsuit could result in is the loss of his patent rights...

 

[Boltzmann]

Ridiculous... As I've said before, intellectual property laws are damning us.

And the worst thing is that he does stand a chance of forcing the MAME developers to change their name and logo...

 

[ultima528]

Foley's explanation: http://www.ultracade.com/mame.pdf

 

[F-3582]

Hmmm... makes sense somehow.

I'm glad that he made a statement before the rumor mill could go completely berserk, although he should at least have contacted the MAME devs before doing such a thing.

Conclusion: They took the TM rights of the MAME logo and name in order to sue people selling illegal stuff (ROM collections, "Arcade Cabinets" etc.). They DIDN'T take them in order to stop development of MAME. MAME will remain a free emulator.

 

[Boltzmann]

Foley's explanation: http://www.ultracade.com/mame.pdf

It does make some sense now, and it’s not as bad as I believed.

Anyway, I still think that it’s wrong of him to trademark a name and logo that are not his own, even if his only intent is to protect his own business.

If he’s so worried about the pirates, he should contact the legal authorities and denounce their illegal operations. The way it is, he’s going to sue them for trademark infringement, instead of having them fined (or arrested) for piracy. He should be fighting piracy, not trademark infringement. Of course it may be the easier way, but this doesn’t make it morally right.

 

[Seta-San]

the thing is, this has no chance at stopping pirates. If a $250,000 fine and/or 20 years in prison per infringement for copyright infringement isn't bad enough what makes you think they'll respect Trademark law

 

[Katsuya]

*I have updated my report at the top post.*

At the very least we can all see he’s not doing this out of the kindness of his heart. His actions are dubious at best. This man and his company have put nothing into the MAME project. And have no right to steal something that was never anyone’s to begin with. (Under the GPL If I remember correctly)

The reasons he gives are utter nonsense. MAME has nothing to do with the Piracy of games. It is just a medium of play. If someone sold a CD Player and a bundle of Pirated Discs, would the Studio try and steal the patent from James T. Russell? (Inventor of the The Digital Compact Disc) no, because that would be impractical and wrong. They would go and apprehend (If possible) the real criminals. (With the aid of law enforcement and proper legal council)

 

[Dark Watcher]

Hmm...OK
Foley merely wishes to put restrictions on using the name MAME in the commercial marketplace. They could very well get a legal contract with the authors allowing them to use the name for this purpose (in exchange for donations of course).

We still don't see the point about it though. These rival arcade sellers don't really need to use the MAME name to sell machines. All they have to do is attract buyers with the promise of 4000 plus games to play. Their target audience are buyers unfamiliar with the fact that MAME is a free product...Thus our conclusion that Ultracades quest to have the MAME name TMed is pointless

 

[F-3582]

I'm somehow doubting that this is the only reason, because you DON'T need to trademark the name of an emulator in order to sue people selling systems including pirated arcade games which can be played with that emulator.

Just think of Nintendo trademarking ZSNES in order to sue people selling a PC including this emulator bundled with thousands of (pirated) SNES games on ebay.

This STINKS! :fart:

P.S.: I'd suggest you all to check out this discussion in the MAME Forums.

 

[ultima528]

http://www.ultracade.com/openoffer.pdf

Foley says he would "be happy to cancel [his] application and work with the M.A.M.E. team to assign [the trademark] to its rightful owners"

Edit: Nevermind, I just realized that the replies were posted on UltraCade's homepage (in HTML format =]), and Katsuya already mentioned that =\

 

[Keith]

The guy has already killed some ebay auctions that were legit claiming that he is the trademark owner and they were in violation .. even though it has not been approved. He has also contacted many other people such as people that make graphics for the cabinets claiming to be the trademark owner and wanting to talk about a royalty settlement. .. so he is obviously has more motives then just fighting piracy. He is trying to kill the competition as well as make some money off of the name.

 

[gamezonline]

Hmm let me get this right..., here wants the MAME team to do all the work and get paid nothing, will he go and sue everyone and collect all the money.... that don't sound right to me