Judge William H. Orrick Jr. applied a legal principle known as the merger doctrine, where courts will not grant copyright protection where it would effectively give someone a monopoly over an idea.

Courts latered expand on this principle, establishing that copyright did not protect generic concepts, functional rules, and scènes à faire.

Years later, Data East found themselves on the other side of a similar dispute, and the court determined that the contents of Fighter's History were legally permissible.

[5] Capcom sought 623 million yen in damages,[6] as well as a preliminary injunction to stop Data East from distributing Fighter's History.

[8] Data East called on expert witness Bill Kunkel, a game journalist who testified in Atari v. Philips that not all copying is infringing, such as the similarity between K.C.

[10] By the late 1980s, courts began to take a more permissive approach with video game clones, deciding that many elements of creativity cannot be protected, such as generic concepts, functional rules, and scènes à faire.

Judge William H. Orrick Jr. stated that there was strong evidence that Data East set out to imitate the success of Street Fighter II, noting similarities such as a "Chun-Li clone" (referring to Feilin) and several comparable special moves.

"[12] In the end, Capcom lost the case on grounds that the copied elements were excluded from copyright protection, as generic scènes à faire.

[13] Judge Orrick applied a legal principle known as the merger doctrine, where courts will not extend copyright protection if it effectively gives someone a monopoly over an idea.

[14] Courts continued this approach for many years, ruling in favor of most video game clones until enforcing some limits in the 2012 case Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive.

[1] Attorney Stephen C. McArthur mentioned it among several rulings that were permissive of clones, such as Atari v. Amusement World and Data East v. Epyx, a pattern that changed in 2012 with Tetris v. Xio and Spry Fox, LLC v. Lolapps, Inc.[8]