This is the story of "Philip Columbo" - or -

How Columbo suddenly came to have a fake first name.

 

Did you know that Inspector Columbo’s first name was the subject of a 300 million dollar copyright process in the 80s that ma it even to the United States Supreme Court?

 

Fred L. Worth is a former air traffic controller in Sacramento, California, and wrote the book "The Trivia Encyclopedia". This book was first published in 1974 and was surprisingly so successful that other trivia encyclopaedias followed.

 

Worth foresaw that the business of such information would be successful and stared gathering painstaking facts. Of course, he knew that his public life could not be kept hidden. He did, however, try to protect the rights of his collection.

 

He was aware that companies that create maps and plans sometimes incorporate errors in these works, e.g. an inexistent lake or a fictional street, in order to protect their works. Inspired by this idea, Worth thought of intentionally placing a wrong item in his book and publish it. Unless someone would copy his book, he could prove that this information is taken from his book.

 

In 1984 when the board game "Trivial Pursuit" was launched, knowing trivia had become the national sport. The game was a huge success and $ 256 million were gained through sales in the USA alone. Worth noticed that the questions on the cards of "Trivial Pursuit" were very familiar to the facts listed in his books, and claimed that 3976 questions have been directly copied from his "Trivia Encyclopedia". Based on this, Worth decided to file a suit for copyright infringement against the company.

 

Worth remembered the fact that he had given Inspector Columbo the first name of "Philip" in his lexicon and that he invented this name freely, which he believed was his secret weapon.

 

In October 1984, the process took place at the Southern California Court. The inventors of "Trivial Pursuit", John and Chris Haney, Ed Werner and Scott Abbot were accused. Moreover, the distributors of the game in the U.S. and Canada, Selchow & Righter and Horn Abbott Ltd. were also on trial. Fred L. Worth required damages in the amount of $ 300 million.

 

Worth’s lawyer claimed that significant amounts of material have been reproduced from the works of his client, including some from the "Trivia Encyclopedia". The defendant would have gone so far as to accept spelling and typographical errors. Furthermore, Worth’s attorney claimed that the game also includes a wrong answer, that the author himself had knowingly published in his lexicon to be able to prove copyright violations. Both Worth and his lawyer initially refused to provide further details about this wrong answer.

 

Naturally, the answer had to be eventually named, and the lawyers of Trivial Pursuit admitted that the defendant had taken a small portion of the questions / answers from the lexicon of the trivialities but that other sources were used in addition to this dictionary. It remained an undisputed fact that the name Philip Columbo could only have come from Worth's lexicon, because he was the only one who had thought of Columbo's first name.

 

The court dismissed the case, and, in 1987, the setting of the originating process by the Court of Appeal was upheld (United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's September 8, 1987 4 USPQ2d 1144, 56 USLW2174, 827 F. 2d569 in 1987 Corp. . L. May. p. 26). The court further stated that the game and the lexicon are fundamentally different. Worth's lawyer made an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, however, which was rejected on 28.05.1988.

 

Even if Trivial Pursuit has removed the card with the question about Inspector Columbo's first name a long time ago, people are still talking about the first name Philip pointing to the game. Even in a "Cop Cookbook", a collection of recipes from famous TV detectives and policemen, Columbo's first name is published as Philip. Here, too, the makers had seemingly allowed themselves to be influenced by the trivia lexicon.

 

Furthermore, various internet sites dealing with Columbo also give him the name Philip. Alternatively, it is argued that this first name is mentioned in the stage version of Prescription: Murder. This does not reflect the reality. By the way, an indication of the automaker Peugeot advertised that the most famous driver of one of their vehicles was "Lieutenant Philip Columbo". Here, too, the makers of these ads seem to have relied on Trivial Pursuit or Fred Worth’s lexicon.

 

So you see that the supposed trick by Fred L. Worth, to protect his copyright, has led to the creation of a legend. Only that you still don’t know what the first name of Inspector Columbo is. Would you like to know? Then read the page Columbo's First Name. Incidentally, we can also tell you what the first name of Mrs. Columbo is.

 

You may find all episodes of Inspector Columbo here.