Tetris Legal History Timeline

A nice desk with a purple tetris block book.

I'm going to try to keep track of the overly complex legal history of Tetris here mostly for my own peace of mind. I keep getting confused on who has the rights to which console or handheld or arcades or whatever at any given time. If you find this page early: it's not done, it's missing a ton of details, and it's probably not totally accurate. This is a rough draft...

1984-1985- Alexey Pajitnov makes Tetris at the Computing Centre of the Academy of Sciences, and then an IBM PC version that becomes popular within the Soviet Union.

1986- Stein enters and faxes to gain the rights for international distribution,

1987- Spectrum Holobyte gets the rights in the USA, Mirrorsoft gets the rights in Europe, isn't there someone you forgot to ask? (Elorg)

1988- The companies above both release their versions of Tetris. Stein's faxes did not technically count as having the license. Comes to an agreement with Elorg, gets worldwide rights(?). Spectrum Holobyte and Mirrorsoft start ALSO lending out the license. Spectrum sells the license for Japanese computer games to Bullet-Proof Software, Mirrosoft sells (?) Arcade rights to Tengen. Tengen sells Japanese Arcade rights to Sega and Japanese console rights to BPS.

1989- Many negotiations. BPS founder Henk Rogers tries to get the rights for a Game Boy tetris for Nintendo. Nintendo takes the deal. Stein gets maybe a little screwed out of the rights. Nintendo tries to C&D Atari/Tengen's NES Tetris. Nintendo and Atari get in a legal battle over the definition of a computer. Tengen's NES Tetris is pulled from sales. Nintendo releases the Game Boy and NES versions to much success.

how does bps famicom fit into this?

Pajitnov, now living in the USA, makes the -tris games. In 1995, the Academy of Sciences's original rights to Tetris expired, and went back to Pajitnov. Pajitnov and Rogers make the Tetris Company, and buy out Elorg (now a private company

Mega Drive Tetris?

later on stuff

The guideline is established and this causes problems

THQ lost DS Tetris

Whatever the hell went on with Ubisoft and all the other tetrises getting delisted. Puyo Puyo Tetris phsyical only on ps4

thi sis crazy they should make a Movie abotu it