Data East and Sega pinball license

[elkor-alish]

I was just wondering if anyone can enlighten me on who owns the rights to produce the Data East and Sega pinball parts.
Does Sega own this or Stern?
I'm curious because it seems that there's a lot of parts made for Bally/Williams machines but all the parts for the Data East/Sega machines are all old stock.
Is this right?
And if someone does have the rights, why aren't they making stuff?
There's so few parts available for these machines.

[pinnies4me]

Sega bought Data East pinball in 1994. In 1999 Sega sold the pinball division to Gary Stern (who had been running DE/Sega since 1986).

DE assigned its patents to Sega -
http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&reel=007496&frame=0825

I can’t see what Sega did with them, there does not seem to be any assignment of those that Sega took over from DE – perhaps Gary Stern was not concerned with them, don’t know. I checked the status on a few of the patents shown and they all came back as having lapsed.

I’m guessing that Stern (today's company) still owns the artwork stuff that was originally DE, and probably could make the parts if it wanted to – I think some of the late Stern parts work in the DE games? Not sure, only got one DE and it never breaks, so haven’t needed to look too hard.

[ajlaird]

Interesting question - I don't know whether Stern could legally make new parts or not.

But there seems to be some match-up with other manufacturer parts anyway - PBR sells stuff that fits DE and Sega machines.

[pinnies4me]

No idea how corporations law works in the US, but it seems from this search that the entity that was "Sega Pinball, Inc" changed it's name to Stern Pinball (and before that was Data East Pinball, Inc.), so maybe the lot is owned by Gary Stern, as it seems the original company DE became Sega and then became Stern. Given he is a lawyer himself I suspect he covered the relevant bases -

http://www.ilsos.gov/corporatellc/CorporateLlcController

[markc]

not sure  how much truth is in this   but I was once told by a pinball dealer in melbourne  that Gary Sterns EX wife  owned them ...
again how true that i I am unsure

i do believe  some parts are being made
the flipper bats have just come out a month or so ago and I sure there will be more

http://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/index.php?search%5Bterms%5D=data+east+flipper+bat&search%5Bmode%5D=all&search%5Bcat%5D=&search%5Bsort_by%5D=name_asc

[Strangeways]

not sure  how much truth is in this   but I was once told by a pinball dealer in melbourne  that Gary Sterns EX wife  owned them ...
again how true that i I am unsure

i do believe  some parts are being made
the flipper bats have just come out a month or so ago and I sure there will be more

http://www.pinballspareparts.com.au/index.php?search%5Bterms%5D=data+east+flipper+bat&search%5Bmode%5D=all&search%5Bcat%5D=&search%5Bsort_by%5D=name_asc

I've heard similar. As part of the separation of Gary and his wife, his wife look the DE Rights and has no intention of doing anything with them

[elkor-alish]

I understand about the parts from the later machines being inter-changeable.
I was more curious about those parts that wear out the most/break, plastic sets, ramps and back glasses, stuff like that.
I know there are collectors that are chasing this stuff.
Does anyone know how to contact the ex Mrs Stern. 

[ajlaird]

I understand about the parts from the later machines being inter-changeable.
I was more curious about those parts that wear out the most/break, plastic sets, ramps and back glasses, stuff like that.
I know there are collectors that are chasing this stuff.
Does anyone know how to contact the ex Mrs Stern. 

Yeah, I figured you might be after plastics or ramps...

Who knows if that story is true or not, but if it is someone does need to track down the ex Mrs Stern and make her an offer!