You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
alternatehistory.com
RCA Corp. v. Atari Games Corp., or how it never came to be
Once Pong kicked off in popularity, it wasn't long before RCA's newly-founded gaming division noticed. In 1973, RCA publicly threatened to sue Atari due to similarities between RCA's Table Tennis and Atari's Pong. However, since simulations of table tennis had existed before the RCA and Atari's examples, such as 1958's Tennis for Two, so it was expected that Atari would win the suit. The recently-founded Atari didn't have enough money to defend themselves in court, though, so RCA settled for Atari to pay a $700,000 licensing fee [1] instead. Both Atari and RCA would end up having other Table Tennis clone manufacturers cough up the licensing fees themselves, but that wouldn't prevent any competition, at least not for the next few years.