Question for the arcade Sprint games

[+jeremiahjt]

The original Sprint arcade games were released by Atari, Inc. in the 1970s.  Atari SA currently has the rights to these of course. Sprint 8 was released on Atari 50 and Sprint 2 was released on Atari Vault.

 

My question regards the releases from Atari Games in the 1980s. How was Atari Games able to release Super Sprint and Championship Sprint? I can see Badlands not being a problem since the word "sprint" does not appear in the title, but the other two I am confused about.

 

I mean I can come up with reasons why it was okay; Atari Games licensed the name, Atari Corp. let the trademark lapse, the trademark only covered the word "sprint" followed by a number, etc.

 

I am curious what the actual reason is, if anybody knows.

[zzip]

It's confusing, there must have been an agreement in place to let Atari Games use it.

 

Atari SA has a new "Neo Sprint" game that's in early access on VCS so they must still have the rights.

[Video]

Atari may have let it lapse, but single screen top down style racers are an unpopular enough genre that it seems nobody else actively used it, so I see no real conflict. The name isn't there, but Indy 500 for 2600 is the same basic game too. I loved that, to bad its the only driving controller game for the system (not including homebrew games)