John Kirby | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Joseph Kirby Jr. (1939-10-22)October 22, 1939 Falls Church, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | October 2, 2019(2019-10-02) (aged 79) |
| Occupation | Attorney |
| Known for | DefendingNintendo fromUniversal Pictures Namesake ofKirby |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Relatives | Edgar M. Cullman (father-in-law) |
John Joseph Kirby Jr. (October 22, 1939 – October 2, 2019) was an American attorney. He was most notable forhis successful defense forNintendo againstUniversal Studios over thecopyrightability of the characterDonkey Kong in 1984, from which Nintendo subsequently named the characterKirby to honor him.[1]
Kirby was born inFalls Church, Virginia on October 22, 1939, to John Joseph Kirby, a lawyer with the federal government for over 40 years, and Rose L. Mangan Kirby, a homemaker.[2] He had two brothers, Peter Kirby and Michael Kirby, and two sisters, Lisa Greissing and Cecelia Wrasse.[2]
Kirby graduated fromFordham University in 1961, serving as student body president and aRhodes scholar, earning both a bachelors and a masters degree fromMerton College at Oxford University.[3] He also was a Fordham trustee and a trustee fellow.[3] He subsequently earned hisJuris Doctor from theUniversity of Virginia School of Law in 1966.[4][5]
During his younger days, Kirby worked at theUnited States Department of Justice as the special assistant to the head of theCivil Rights Division,John Doar, during the height of thecivil rights movement in the 1960s. At the Department of Justice, where he first worked as a summer intern, he gathered voting records throughout the South that demonstrated evidence of widespread discrimination against African-Americans. His documentation of methods such as literacy tests specifically designed to exclude African-Americans from voting helped form the basis of theVoting Rights Act of 1965. While at the Civil Rights Division, he also found himself personally escorting African-American children into segregated schools, surrounded by federal marshals. Later, he was appointed Deputy Director to the President's Commission on Campus Unrest, founded in the aftermath of thekillings of four students at Kent State University.[6]
Kirby eventually left the Justice Department and entered private practice. He argued in front of the Supreme Court and served as the chairman of the historic Wall Street law firmMudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon. After Mudge Rose dissolved in 1995, he joined the international law firmLatham & Watkins LLP, where he would chair their New York Litigation Department until 2004 and serve as head of the New York office's Intellectual Property and Technology Practice Group until 2007.[2] During his four-decade career, Kirby represented a number of notable corporations in legal disputes, among which the likes ofPepsiCo.,General Foods, andWarner-Lambert.[7]
Kirby's most well-known case wasUniversal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. (1984), which he handled while a partner at Mudge Rose. In this case, he defendedNintendo against litigation fromUniversal Studios in a dispute revolving around the video gameDonkey Kong, which Universal claimed to be an unlicensed use of the titular character from their filmKing Kong. Kirby won the case, a landmark victory for Nintendo, by presenting evidence that Universal had previously won a legal battle againstRKO that said the story and characters ofKing Kong were in the public domain; thus, Universal had no legal right to claim ownership of the characters and basic scenario (man rescuing a woman from a large ape) when the studio originally threatened legal action against Nintendo.[8] For this defense, Kirby was considered to have "saved Nintendo" during its early growth into video games in the American market.[9]
In thanks for aiding them, Nintendo gave Kirby a $30,000 sailboat, christenedDonkey Kong, along with "exclusive worldwide rights to use the name for sailboats."[10]Shigeru Miyamoto also stated that the name of the characterKirby (created byMasahiro Sakurai) was chosen in honor of Kirby.[11][12] It is rumored that a copy of the gameKirby's Dream Land was eventually sent to Kirby, who was humored and flattered.[13]
Kirby was married to Susan Cullman, daughter ofEdgar M. Cullman.[14] He had three children from a previous marriage and a stepdaughter.[2][14]
Kirby died on October 2, 2019, due to complications frommyelodysplastic syndrome, twenty days before his 80th birthday.[2]
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