Last week Nestle SA tossed back charges in a fresh court case in which Atari SA blamed the food firm based in Swiss of stealing Breakout. Breakout is Atari SA’s classic 1970s video game, and it blames that Nestle SA stole it to assist advertise its chocolate-covered wafer bars—Kit Kat.
Nestle spoiled reputation and goodwill of Atari on Twitter, Facebook, and television by using the look, name, and feel of Breakout, it claimed in a trademark and copyright infringement grievance filed in San Francisco last week. Atari claimed that Nestle and the U.K. and the U.S. affiliates of the company did this to satisfy the hunger of nostalgic Generation X, Baby Boomers, and even today’s post-Millennial and Millennial gamers. A spokesperson of Nestle UK said, “We are conscious of the court case in the U.S. and will protect ourselves sturdily against these accusations.”
Kit Kat was first produced in 1935. Breakout was made by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, with assistance from Steve Jobs, the fellow co-founder of Apple, as a heir to “Pong.” Breakout needs a player to knock out, with the help of a paddle, rows of colored bricks. Nestle just restored the bricks with brown bars of Kit Kat, and employed in a Kit Kate Bites ad named “Kit Kat: Breakout,” showing children and adults using paddles to knock out the Kit Kat bars, as per Atari. Atari claimed that it is obvious that Nestle takes over the intellectual property rights of Atari and it is illegal.
“Nestle has no justification,” claimed Atari in a statement to the media. The ad of Kit Kat Bites ran only in the U.K. and no longer is in play, the Nestles spokesperson claimed to the media in an interview. Atari is looking for a 3 x the profits of Nestle from the charged violation, in addition of the 3x and 5 x damages as a compensation. The case is Atari Interactive Inc v Nestle SA et al, the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 17-04803. This data was given by trusted sources with the condition of being unnamed.
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