Nestle sued for copying Steve Jobs' block busting Atari game Breakout in KitKat ad

'Nestle simply took the classic Breakout screen, replaced its bricks with Kit Kat bars, and invited customers to 'Breakout' and buy more candy bars', Atari alleges

In Nestle’s advert, which is titled KitKat: Breakout, a group of people play a game where they use a paddle to knock down KitKat pieces (iStock)

Nestle has fought back over accusations it “blatantly” copied Atari’s classic 1970s video game Breakout to help sell KitKats.

In court documents filed in San Francisco on Thursday, Atari said Nestle knowingly exploited the Breakout name, look and feel for an ad campaign that ran on Facebook, Twitter and television.

The complaint alleges that Nestle used the game - which Apple founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs helped create - to leverage “the special place [Breakout] holds among nostalgic Baby Boomers, Generation X, and even today's Millennial and post-Millennial 'gamers'".

A spokesperson for Nestle said: "We are aware of the lawsuit in the US and will defend ourselves strongly against these allegations."

Breakout requires players to knock down coloured bricks by hitting a ball into them using a paddle at the bottom of the screen which moves from side to side.

In Nestle’s advert, which is titled KitKat: Breakout, a group of people play a game where they use a paddle to knock down KitKat pieces instead of bricks.

Atari said the similarities are, “so plain and blatant that Nestle cannot claim to be an ‘innocent’ infringer”.

It said the infringement of Atari’s intellectual property rights was illegal and that this “had to have been obvious” to Nestle.

“Nestle has no excuse”, Atari said.

"Nestle decided that it would, without Atari’s authorisation, leverage Breakout," the court filing read.

"To be clear, this is not a case where a good faith dispute could exist between the rights holder and alleged infringer.

"Instead, Nestle simply took the classic Breakout screen, replaced its bricks with Kit Kat bars, and invited customers to “Breakout” and buy more candy bars.

"Adding insult to injury, Nestle’s Breakout campaign was comprehensive, and the infringement continues to this very moment. Kit Kat ads centred on the exploitation and misuse of the Breakout name, and the Breakout look, feel, sound, and imagery remain on Twitter, under Nestle’s Twitter handle, and on Facebook, on Nestle’s Facebook page, for all the world to see."

Nestle says it ran the campaign last year in the UK and has no plans to re-run it. Atari is seeking three times Nestle’s profit from the campaign, plus triple punitive damages.