The Tetris Company

Last updated
The Tetris Company, Inc.
Company type Private
Industry Video games
Founder
Headquarters
Las Vegas, Nevada
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
ServicesLicensor of the Tetris brand
OwnerTetris Holding, LLC [1]
Website tetris.com

The Tetris Company, Inc. (TTC) is the manager and licensor for the Tetris brand to third parties. [2] It is an American company based in Nevada and owned by Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers. [3] The company is the exclusive licensee of Tetris Holding LLC, the company that owns Tetris rights worldwide. [4]

Contents

History

Tetris was created in 1985 [5] by Pajitnov. As the initial versions of the game spread through the Eastern Bloc, interest in licensing it for western commercial release drew much attention. Elektronorgtechnica (Elorg) was the Soviet agency created to control the import and export of hardware and software outside the Soviet Union. As part of the licensing of the game, Pajitnov agreed to let Elorg handle all licensing for a 10-year period. One of the main licensees of the game was Bullet-Proof Software, owned by Henk Rogers, with whom Pajitnov struck up a friendship. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Elorg was privatized.

The Tetris Company was established in 1996 by Pajitnov and Rogers to manage the worldwide licensing of the property. The visual expression in official Tetris games is covered by copyrights that are owned by Tetris Holding, LLC, the company into which Pajitnov placed his Tetris rights. [6] The Tetris Company licenses the Tetris trademark (which includes Tetris trade dress elements, such as the distinct brightly colored blocks and the vertically rectangular play field [7] ) to video game development companies and maintains a set of guidelines that each licensed game must meet. [2] Initially, Elorg was a partner in the Tetris Company until Rogers and Pajitnov bought Elorg's remaining rights around 2005. [8] [9]

The Tetris Company has also issued licenses to third parties for the production of other products, such as greeting cards and lottery tickets. [6] [10]

TTC drew attention in the late 1990s when it attempted to remove freeware and shareware clones of Tetris from the market by sending out cease-and-desist letters claiming both trademark and copyright infringement. [11] Creators of Tetris clones claimed that the company had no valid legal basis to restrict tetromino games that did not infringe on the Tetris name trademark, since copyright "look-and-feel" suits have not stood up in court in the past ( Lotus v. Borland ), and because the letters made no patent claims. [12]

In August 2008, Apple Inc. removed Tris, a clone of Tetris from its online App Store. [13] In March 2009, the Tetris Company sued BioSocia, operator of the Omgpop gaming portal [14] [15] because one of its multiplayer games, Blockles, was too similar to Tetris. By September 2009, Omgpop removed the game from the website and replaced it with an alternate that the developers created, based on Puyo Puyo .

In May 2010, lawyers representing the Tetris Company sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act Violation Notice regarding Tetris clones available for Android. [16] Google responded by removing the 35 games listed in the notice even though, according to one developer, the games contained no references to Tetris. [17] [18] [19]

In February 2011, the Tetris Company continued to make copyright claims against independently developed Tetris clones, most notably against Tetrada on the Windows Phone 7 marketplace. The developer, Mario Karagiannis, rejected the claims of copyright infringement on the grounds that copyright does not cover gameplay design, but still removed the game, citing lack of resources to fight what he called "bullying". [20] [21]

In the case Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc. , a US District Court judge ruled in June 2012 that the Tetris clone Mino from Xio Interactive infringed on the Tetris Company's copyrights by replicating elements such as the playfield dimensions and the shapes of the blocks. [22]

In October 2020, the previous licensing company for the Tetris brand, Blue Planet Software Inc., founded by Henk Rogers in 1996, was merged with The Tetris Company, effectively rendering BPS defunct. [1]

In April 2021, a YouTuber called JDH made an operating system that only runs Tetris. [23] Two months later, his GitHub repository was taken offline by the Tetris Company because of copyright infringement. [24] [ non-primary source needed ]

In July 2022, the Tetris Company took down Playtris, a Playdate remake of Tetris created by developer ThaCuber, due to copyright infringement. [25] The GitHub repository is still available under the new name, BlockDate. [26]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexey Pajitnov</span> Russian computer engineer (born 1955)

Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov is a Soviet computer engineer and video game designer who lives in the United States. He is best known for creating, designing, and developing Tetris in 1985 while working at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre under the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. After Tetris was released internationally in 1987, he released a sequel in 1989, entitled Welltris.

<i>Tetris</i> 1985 video game

Tetris is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. It has been published by several companies on more than 65 platforms, setting a Guinness world record for the most ported game. After a significant period of publication by Nintendo, in 1996 the rights reverted to Pajitnov, who co-founded the Tetris Company with Henk Rogers to manage licensing.

<i>Tetris Attack</i> 1995 video game

Tetris Attack, also known as Panel de Pon in Japan, is a puzzle video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. A Game Boy version was released a year later. In the game, the player must arrange matching colored blocks in vertical or horizontal rows to clear them. The blocks steadily rise towards the top of the playfield, with new blocks being added at the bottom. Several gameplay modes are present, including a time attack and multiplayer mode.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henk Rogers</span> Dutch computer programmer (born 1953)

Henk Brouwer Rogers is a Dutch video game designer and entrepreneur of partial Indonesian descent. He is known for producing Japan's first major turn-based role-playing video game The Black Onyx, securing the rights to distribute the Russian puzzle video game Tetris on video game consoles where the game found popularity, and as the founder of Bullet-Proof Software and The Tetris Company, which licenses the Tetris trademark. He was instrumental in resolving licensing disputes that brought Tetris to the Game Boy. Today, he is managing director of The Tetris Company.

<i>Tetris</i> (Atari Games) 1988 video game

Tetris is a puzzle game developed by Atari Games and originally released for arcades in 1988. Based on Alexey Pajitnov's Tetris, Atari Games' version features the same gameplay as the computer editions of the game, as players must stack differently shaped falling blocks to form and eliminate horizontal lines from the playing field. The game features several difficulty levels and two-player simultaneous play.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video game clone</span> Video game that resembles another video game

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elektronorgtechnica</span> Defunct Soviet state-owned trading company

Elektronorgtechnica, better known abbreviated as ELORG (Элорг), was a state-owned organization with a monopoly on the import and export of computer support and hardware and software in the Soviet Union. It was controlled by the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR from 1971 to 1989.

<i>Tetris</i> (Game Boy video game) 1989 video game

Tetris is a puzzle video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy in 1989. It is a portable version of Alexey Pajitnov's original Tetris and it was bundled with the North American and European releases of the Game Boy itself. It is the first game to have been compatible with the Game Link Cable, a pack-in accessory that allows two Game Boy consoles to link for multiplayer purposes. A remaster, Tetris DX, was released on the Game Boy Color in 1998. A Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console version of Tetris was released in December 2011, lacking multiplayer functionality. The game was released on the Nintendo Switch Online service in February 2023.

Blue Planet Software Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded by Henk Rogers in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1996. The company was founded as the successor to Bullet-Proof Software Inc. (BPS), founded in 1983 by Rogers in Japan, which closed on 22 February 2001.

Tetris Online, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher. The company was the exclusive online licensee of Tetris in North America and Europe. It was founded in January 2006 by Nintendo of America founder and former president Minoru Arakawa, video game designer and publisher Henk Rogers and Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov. Tetris Online, Inc. is the developer of social games Tetris Battle and Tetris Friends. In March 2013, Tetris Online, Inc. laid off 40% of its staff.

Avatar Reality is a Honolulu-based game studio founded by Henk B. Rogers and Kazuyuki Hashimoto in December 2006. They develop an advanced virtual realm platform aimed at bringing together individuals worldwide on a grandiose level. Rogers with Alexy Pajitnov is known for creating Tetris and introducing it to the world and especially to US markets, and Kazuyuki is best known for developing the game Final Fantasy VII and the film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Avatar Reality is one of FiReStarter companies at the 2009 Future In Review Conference. Minoru Arakawa, former CEO of Nintendo of America, is an advisor to the company. The company is led by CEO Jim Sink.

<i>Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc.</i> 1988 legal case

Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc. 862 F.2d 204, 9 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1322 was a court case between two video game manufacturers, where Data East claimed that their copyright in Karate Champ was infringed by World Karate Championship, a game created by Epyx. Data East released Karate Champ in arcades in 1984, and the game became a best-seller and pioneered the fighting game genre. The next year, Epyx published World Karate Championship for home computers, which sold 1.5 million copies. Data East sued Epyx, alleging that the game infringed on their copyright and trademark.

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The Ville is a defunct game by Zynga released on June 30, 2012 in which the object was to earn experience points by building a house and talking with neighbors.

The protection of intellectual property (IP) of video games through copyright, patents, and trademarks, shares similar issues with the copyrightability of software as a relatively new area of IP law. The video game industry itself is built on the nature of reusing game concepts from prior games to create new gameplay styles but bounded by illegally direct cloning of existing games, and has made defining intellectual property protections difficult since it is not a fixed medium.

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<i>Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc.</i> 2012 legal case

Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc., 863 F.Supp.2d 394, was a 2012 American legal case related to copyright of video games, confirming that a game's look and feel can be protected under copyright law. Tetris Holding is a company that holds the copyright to the original Tetris game from 1985 and licenses those rights to game developers. Xio Interactive is a game developer that released Mino in 2009, a mobile game based on the gameplay of Tetris. Mino was downloaded millions of times, and Tetris Holding filed a DMCA notice and eventually a lawsuit against Xio for copyright infringement.

<i>Capcom U.S.A. Inc. v. Data East Corp.</i> 1994 legal case

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<i>Atari v. Amusement World</i> 1981 legal case

Atari, Inc. v. Amusement World, Inc., 547 F. Supp. 222 is a legal case in which the United States District Court for the District of Maryland held that Amusement World's arcade game Meteors did not violate Atari's copyright in their game Asteroids.

References

  1. 1 2 "Call Us Tetris". The Tetris Company. 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2023-08-26.
  2. 1 2 Metts, Jonathan (2006-04-06). "Tetris from the Top: An Interview with Henk Rogers". Nintendo World Report. Retrieved 2014-04-17.
  3. ↑ "Tetris: a history" . Retrieved 2011-02-17.
  4. ↑ "Hasbro and The Tetris Company Announce New Face-to-Face Games Based on World-Famous TETRIS Video Game". BusinessWire. 2013-01-08. Retrieved 2014-04-17.
  5. ↑ "Tetris | video game | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-04-19.
  6. 1 2 TETRIS HOLDING, LLC ET AL V. XIO INTERACTIVE, 09-6115 , 2( D.N.J. 2012-05-30).
  7. ↑ Ball, Eric; Ip, Alexander (2016-08-07). "How Trade Dress Can Help Game Developers Level Up". IPWatchdog.com. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  8. ↑ Hartley, Matt (2009-06-06). "Rock around the blocks". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Retrieved 2011-02-17.
  9. ↑ Remo, Chris (2009-09-10). "The Man Who Won Tetris". Gamasutra . Retrieved 2014-04-17.
  10. ↑ "Pollard Banknote Exclusive License, Tetris, A Perfect Fit For The Texas Lottery". Winnipeg, Manitoba: Pollard Banknote Limited. 2015-05-01. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
  11. ↑ Andrew James Bednarz, December 24, 1997 The Tetris Company Story Archived 2012-07-08 at archive.today
  12. ↑ Bjorn Stenberg A trademark cease-and-desist for Rockbox's Tetrox: Tetrox renamed to Rockblox, for trademark reasons. September 19, 2006. Retrieved on September 5, 2009.
  13. ↑ iPhone Tetris Clone 'Tris' Pulled From App Store on Kotaku
  14. ↑ Ross Dannenberg. Patent Arcade: New Case: Tetris Co. v. BioSocia, Inc. (S.D.N.Y) [Copyright] Retrieved on September 5, 2009. Archived April 21, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  15. ↑ Information about Tetris vs. Biosocia Inc. Archived 2009-11-20 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on December 28, 2009.
  16. ↑ DMCA Notice sent to Google Retrieved May 28, 2010.
  17. ↑ "Google pulls Tetris from Android - Tetris, blocked TechEye". Archived from the original on 2016-01-12. Retrieved 2011-02-18.
  18. ↑ Lendino, Jamie (2010-05-28). "Google's Android Market Purges Tetris Clones". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2011-02-18.
  19. ↑ "Tetris Clones Yanked Off Market". DroidGamers. 27 May 2010. Retrieved 2011-02-18.
  20. ↑ "The Tetris Company forces Tetrada out of WP7 Marketplace - News - Know Your Mobile". Archived from the original on 2017-08-05. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
  21. ↑ "Tetris clone Tetrada removed from Windows Phone 7 Marketplace after takedown request | Tetris news | Pocket Gamer". 8 February 2011. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
  22. ↑ Brown, Mark (2012-06-20). "US judge declares Tetris clone 'infringing'". Wired UK . Retrieved 2012-07-01.
  23. ↑ "Tetris-OS Is an 'OS' That Only Plays Tetris". Gizmodo. 2021-04-21. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
  24. ↑ JDH. "Tetris OS Github Repository". GitHub . Retrieved 2021-06-22.
  25. ↑ "Takedown notice for Playtris". itch.io. Retrieved 2023-08-01.
  26. ↑ ThaCuber (2023-07-24), BlockDate , retrieved 2023-08-01
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