The rights to Ms. Pac-Man are caught up in a messy legal battle

Enlarge / This AtGames prototype cabinet is at the heart of a legal battle over the rights to Ms. Pac-Man. (credit: Bandai Namco court filing)

The complicated rights situation behind Ms. Pac-Man is at the heart of a legal battle between Bandai Namco-which owns the Ms. Pac-Man trademark and copyright-and retro hardware maker AtGames-which has now purchased the separately held royalty rights to the game.

The strange situation dates back to 1982, when a group of MIT students created an unauthorized "enhancement kit" named "Crazy Otto" for Bandai Namco's arcade hit Pac-Man. The MIT group, which organized under the name General Computer Corporation, then reached out to US Pac-Man distributor Bally Midway to develop that modification into the officially licensed Ms. Pac-Man.

As part of the Crazy Otto licensing deal, GCC received the right to a perpetual royalty payment whenever a Ms. Pac-Man game was sold. Bally Midway retained the copyright and trademark rights to the game and its characters, though, which Bandai Namco eventually reacquired in the intervening years.

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