Eidos Is Accused of Copyright Infringement

Anyone remember playing the game Zero Tolerance on the Sega Genesis 16 bit game machine? Apparently, Eidos Interactive doesn™t, because they may have infringed upon the copyright owners of the game. The original game, published by Sega and developed by Technopop, was released in 1994 and was considered to be an excellent science fiction FPS (first person shooter) for its time. Though relatively tame as compared to today™s games, Zero Tolerance brought a great deal of heart pounding action and fun to Genesis gamers. The problem arises from the upcoming Eidos title, Zero Tolerance: City Under Fire. Randel Reiss, the copyright holder of the Genesis game, filed a cease and desist order against Eidos. In the complaint filed by Reiss and released by Gamelaw.org, Reiss says, Frankly I am shocked and appalled that your legal counsel [at Eidos] apparently put no effort whatsoever in attempting to communicate with me. All records and information regarding the Zero Tolerance name are clear and publicly available. Business partners interested in licensing the Zero Tolerance name have fluently contacted me through those clear and public channels. Reiss indicated that the information is clear and publicly available so some basic detective work was done by GamerNode to check out the facts. According to the records of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Zero Tolerance trademark filed by Reiss™ company, in June of 1994, was deemed cancelled and dead on November 9, 2002. The new trademark application filed by SCI Games (who owns Eidos) was filed on September 1, 2005. If the records are correct and up-to-date, it seems that the infringement claims may have no grounds. At the time of this writing, Eidos has not made any official statement regarding this situation.