Although the courts enjoined the Game Genie from being sold, Galoob ultimately succeeded when the case went to trial, also winning $15 million in damages.

[4] At a Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Codemasters founder David Darling tried to approach Nintendo's representatives, but they would not engage without an official appointment.

[4] Darling interpreted this as a "cold shoulder", and the company became determined to create an unauthorized development kit for the NES, starting by reverse engineering the console and cracking Nintendo's security measures.

[4] When Lewis Galoob's son first encountered the device, he became fascinated by the Game Genie's ability to make Mario jump higher.

[3] Nintendo also alleged that Galoob contributed to infringement by encouraging their customers to make unauthorized derivative works using the Game Genie.

[3] On July 2, 1990, District Judge Robert Howard Schnacke granted Nintendo a preliminary injunction, preventing Galoob from selling the Game Genie until the dispute was fully resolved.

[8] Months later in December, a hearing was held to determine how much of the $15 million bond would be awarded to Galoob to compensate for losses during the approximately one-year period they were prohibited from selling the Game Genie.

[7] Partly using extrapolated sales data from Canada, the court found that because Galoob's losses actually exceeded $15 million, it was entitled to the entire amount, plus legal fees.

[4] The Game Genie was considered non-infringing for two major reasons: that it did not create a new permanent work, and that Nintendo did not prove they experienced any present or potential market harm.

[16][18] In the Handbook of Intellectual Property Claims and Remedies, the author Patrick J. Flinn argued that Nintendo failed to take into account a fair use analysis, and that there was no real evidence that the Game Genie hurt their business.

[6] The Journal of Intellectual Property Law compared both the Sega and Galoob cases to the earlier fair use case in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios (1984), concluding that a new technology shouldn't trigger copyright liability as long as it doesn't undermine a copyright owner's ability to earn a fair return for their works.

[2] The Galoob decision continues to influence legal discussions of fair use of copyrighted video game content, such as how to apply the principle of permanency to a live stream or Let's Play.

[3] Soon after the court decided Galoob, video game mods became more widespread, particularly with the popularity of Doom and the permissive attitude of its developer, Id Software.

[26] The Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal compared the Micro Star and Galoob cases, arguing that it is not inherently copyright infringement to modify a game, unless that modification is saved as a copy and distributed to the public.

[25] Since modern mods are distributed to the public in a permanent form, the William & Mary Business Law Review called the Galoob decision a "pyrrhic victory" for modders.

[27] The question of whether a modification creates a new derivative work arose outside of the game industry in 2001, when television networks and studios sued SONICblue over the commercial-skipping feature of their digital video service, ReplayTV.