World Karate Championship

Trivia

Under the options menu, when you change between RGB monitor or Composite monitor, an interesting thing occurs: When set to the "use RGB" option, the backgrounds have slightly increased resolution.

This was the first British-developed game to top the US Billboard chart.

Data East USA vs Epyx battle regarding copyright infringiments. Here's what happened:

In Data East USA. Inc. v. Epyx Inc., 862 F.2d 204 (9th Cir. 1988), the Ninth Circuit reversed the finding of copyright infringement by the District Court after trial and held that the similarities between the plaintiff's and defendant's respective "Karate" video games were dictated by the functions of the game and not by their expression. The Ninth Circuit stated that:

After careful consideration and viewing of these features, we find that they necessarily follow from the idea of a martial arts karate combat game, or are inseparable from, indispensable to, or even standard treatment of the idea of the karate sport. As such, they are not protectable. "When idea and expression co-incide, there will be protection against nothing other than identical copying." Krofft, 562 F.2d at 1168. A comparison of the works in this case demonstrates that identical copying is not an issue. Accordingly, we hold that the court did not give the appropriate weight and import to its findings which support Epyx's argument that the similarities result from unprotectable expression....The lower court erred by not limiting the scope of Data East's copyright protection to the author's contribution -- the scoreboard and back- ground scenes. In actuality, however, the backgrounds are quite dissimilar and the method of scorekeeping, though similar is inconsequential. (emphasis in original).