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Universal City Studios, inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Donkey Kong had become a huge success in arcades worldwide and made Nintendo a household name. But with this success Universal Studios noticed the similarities between Donkey Kong and their character King Kong who directly inspired Donkey Kong. Universal tried to sue Nintendo but this goes against everything Universal has fought for since the 1933 film King Kong. Universal knew they didn't fully own King Kong but who did? For this it's time to look back at the legal disputes over the true owner of King Kong.
Merian C. Cooper concieved the idea of King Kong in 1929 and pitched the idea to the studio RKO for the initial 1933 film and it's sequel Son of Kong only. However, he had legal issues trying to create Tarzan v. King Kong in 1935. In 1962, Cooper discovered that RKO licensed King Kong to Toho studios in Japan for King Kong vs. Godzilla and it was discovered that RKO now fully owned King Kong and not his creator anymore. This is due to the fact that Cooper lost key documents proving his legal ownership of King Kong. He discovered these documents were missing after his service in WWII. Without these documents Cooper only had legal ownership of the novelisations of King Kong and not the films.
It wasn't until 1975 that Universal Studios joined this legal debate when RKO promised Universal the rights to the remake films but instead gave it to the studio Dino De Laurentiis after a bribe. Universal sued RKO who countersued them, Dino De Laurentiis filed a lawsuit against Universal for intefering and Colonel Richard Cooper (Merian's son) joined the legal disputes too. While all of this was going on Universal discovered that the Lovelace novelisations were using an expired license to publish the novels placing the novelisations of King Kong in the public domain. It had originally been agreed that Universal could make King Kong films based solely off the books and not incorporate elements of the films but this was later overuled. After Universal's defeat in 1976, Richard Cooper sold all of his rights to King Kong, excluding that of publications, to Universal. However, in 1980 it was ruled that the name, character and story of King Kong (aside from the original film and sequel) belonged solely to Merian Cooper and not Universal.
The lawsuit against Nintendo occured in 1982 with Universal still believing they had some rights over the character of King Kong. However, the courts ruled that the rights to King Kong were upheld by three parties only: RKO held rights to the original film and sequel, Dino De Laurentiis held rights to the 1976 remake and finally Richard Cooper owned the rights to the publication of King Kong. The fact that Universal attempted to sue Nintendo in this way counteracts their attempts to legally place King Kong in the public domain. This coupled with Universal holding no rights to the character meant that Nintendo won the court case and could continue making money off of Donkey Kong.
Since this defeat Universal now owns the majority rights of King Kong and Donkey Kong became one of the biggest and most well known arcade games of all time. Since this Nintendo has helped advertise Universal's theme park in the 1989 film The Wizard and a Gamecube game that allows you to visit the park.
