[game_preservation] Video game legal archive

[Martin Goldberg]

Just wanted to inform the list, just got back from staying at my
friend Ralph Baer's place for a few days.  Besides working on a few
projects with him, the main purpose of the visit was to take
possession of a large cache (8 or so legal boxes worth) of documents.
These were patent filings and renewals, and several major court cases
from the 70's and 80's.  These include the original Bally/Atari/Allied
Sears case of the mid 70's, APF/Mattel in the late 70's/early 80's,
Activision, Nintendo and more during the 80's.  The content includes
all legal paperwork, transcriptions, and testimonies (including people
such as Higinbotham).  Also a bunch of material related to the 70's
home and arcade industry, such as documentation of the industries
first licensing and such.

We will now be starting the long and arduous process of cataloging and
scanning everything to make it available online in the future.  So
far, it looks like the cataloging method I'll be going with is:

Main Subject - Sub-Subject - Folder - Doc#.

Subject would be just what we have written on the box.  So like for
the royalty payments one you'd have -

RB-Royalty-Allied-1.pdf

for the scan name.  RB of course being Ralph Baer, Royalty being the
box, Allied being the folder, and 1 being whatever document that is in
the folder.


Marty