RAY threatens game-maker with court appearance

Digital version of traditional pub game troubles Finnish monopoly

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By Petri Sajari
     
      We've all seen them, and often played them. The Pajatso or "Payazzo" arcade games (the name derives from the bajazzo German original) have been a stock feature of Finnish bars, gas stations, bus terminals, and even supermarkets for years.
      The principle is that the player flicks a coin through a slot in the side of the machine and tries to get it to land in a vertical chute of coins, causing them to drop and produce the winnings in a tray at the bottom.
     
Pajatso machines are one of the assortment of gambling devices administered - and in this instance also manufactured and even exported - by RAY, or Raha-automaattiydistys, the Finnish Slot Machine Association.
      RAY was established in the late 1930s to raise funds through gaming to support Finnish health and welfare organizations. RAY enjoys has an exclusive right in Finland to operate slot machines and casino table games, and to run a casino.
     
Now, however, a hand-held competitor has emerged.
      RAY are demanding that Elias Pietilä, who has devised an electronic "Pajatzo" simulation for use with the Apple iPhone, should stop selling the application.
      The Association feels that Pietilä's digital Pajatzo is - in terms of name, appearance, and other factors - just a copy of RAY's own mechanical Pajatso game.
      In its cease & desist demands, The Slot Machine Association is appealing to the law on trade marks, the law on improper business practices, and copyright legislation.
     
What makes the case rather special is that RAY does not have a valid trade mark for Pajatso.
      Pajatzo, meanwhile, has from the outset been a digital game programmed by Pietilä.
      For a charge of improper business practices to stick, it would require that one party benefits in the marketing of a product from the goodwill accrued by another product.
      The consumer cannot be hoodwinked as to the real origins of the product.
      Violation of the goodwill value of a product often contains the presumption that the competing product is weaker in qualitiative terms than the original, that it adversely affects demand for or supply of the original product, and hampers the commercial operations of the other party.
     
Every time an iPhone user who has installed the game application powers it up, on the screen appears the message: "Elias Pietilä presents Pajatzo".
      He is selling the game simulation in the iTunes AppStore under his own name.
     
Ray is claiming that its own Pajatso has a goodwill value that the Association regards as significant, since the game is widely known among Finns.
      "Pajatso is only a marginal product for us in terms of RAY's aggregate turnover, but its brand is extremely important to us. It brings in something like five million euros in turnover each year", says RAY's Executive Director of Gaming Operations, Janne Peräkylä.
      Pietilä has offered to sell his simulation to RAY, but there have been no negotiations over the possible deal.
      The game, which was released last December and is now in its 1.1 version, has thus far produced revenue of EUR 2,400 for Pietilä.
     
RAY's request on the matter has been transferred to the Central Chamber of Commerce's Board of Business Practice to provide a ruling.
      The Board's decision is not legally binding, but thereafter the handling of the matter would pass to a court, for instance the Market Court.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat /Adapted from an article first published in print 15.9.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finland´s Slot Machine Association prepared to launch online poker in 2010 (29.4.2009)

See also:
  Minister Wallin puts forward idea of nationally-arranged Net poker in Finland (23.1.2008)

Links:
  Payazzo or pajatso (Wikipedia)
  RAY, The Finnish Slot Machine Association
  Payazzo (pajatso) on the RAY site - Payazzo is the name used in RAYs exports
  Pajatzo on the AppStore

PETRI SAJARI / Helsingin Sanomat
petri.sajari@hs.fi