The former owner of Ultracade Technologies, a maker of MAME-style arcade cabinets, is looking at a 35-count federal indictment for fraud, theft of trade secrets, and trafficking counterfeit goods.
David R. Foley, who founded Ultracade in 2002, is accused of copying the "game packs" - multi-game software that ran on the cabinets - from his Los Gatos home prior to selling off the company, using a company burner. Foley was later fired from Ultracade - the reasons weren't specified - but the indictment alleges he used the code and trade secrets belonging to the new owner, Global VR, to create and sell counterfeit game packs.
The charges therefore mean not only was Global VR defrauded, but also licensees Namco, Nintendo and Taito, whose games ran on the cabinets. A second man - the buyer of Foley's allegedly counterfeit packs - was also named in the indictment. He allegedly sold the packs via eBay, and also used a proprietary burner to replicate them.
Ultracade had a tortured organizational history going back to the 1990s but its cabinets were chic enough to be something of a luxury item among gaming cognoscenti.
Two Indicted Over Theft of Software [San Francisco Chronicle]