My initial reaction to discovering the Tapper patent was that it seemed like a hilarious parody. So what's missing here is some historical background to Tapper

My initial reaction to discovering the Tapper patent was that it seemed like a hilarious parody. So what's missing here is some historical background to Tapper, which could give some insight into why the patent was written this way. Bally/Midway regularly contracted out to external design firms for game ideas. One of these firms was Marvin Glass and Associates, a toy design group in Chicago. MGA was responsible for many childhood favorites such as Mouse Trap, Simon^, Lite Brite, Operation, and many others. The toy industry is highly secretive and extremely competitive. Anything and everything that comes out of their design labs is immediately put into a patent application. Tapper was no exception to this rule. (^ Simon was designed by Ralph Baer, who was on MGA's payroll at the time. It can also be argued that, given the amount of copying that went on with Pong and other clones, Baer also made sure future video game designs within his view were more closely protected than before.)