[casual_games] Gameplay patents

[Alex Amsel]

This is obviously my day for disagreeing. Must be the early alarm call 
for my taxi, late plane, flat tyre on my return from Amsterdam, and then 
my car being snowed in & my luggage breaking while dragging it home. 
Other than that I had a good time!

Patents and games. NO NO NO. Sorry mate, but I strongly disagree with 
the idea of patenting game concepts/techniques. We'd never get anything 
done - you can trace Gears of War back to Space Invaders. Now imagine if 
everything was patented. We wouldn't be here, that's for sure.

What's more, you may struggle to do it in most territories - certainly 
Europe and the US. There are some very specific things you can patent, 
so I can't say whether you fit those cases, but as a general rule you 
can't patent gameplay. However, there are one or two funny patents 
around, particularly in Japan.

Games are protected (to some extent) through look and feel, which is why 
reskinning is allowed but using or imitating characters - or certain 
other looks - is not. This is Copyright protection and not Patent 
protection.

I'm quite prepared to be corrected on this by our on list lawyer, but 
hopefully I've got it broadly correct.

Apart from anything else, patenting is not the cheapest process in the 
world to say the least, especially when dealing in multiple territories, 
and protecting them even less so. Patents can be very powerful, but make 
sure you know what you're dealing with (as your email implies that you 
maybe aren't sure, correct me if I'm wrong).

Good luck, whatever you decide.

Milt Michael wrote:

> Although I'm no expert on patents, I am going forward with a patent

> application for my game because I feel it contains new processes and

> formulas that improve gameplay.

>

> I'd sure like to hear from others who have gone down this road though!

>

> Milt

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]

> On Behalf Of Jose Marin

> Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 7:24 AM

> To: casual_games at igda.org

> Subject: [casual_games] Gameplay patents

>

> Hi.

>

> I've seen several games that have the same gameplay (almost clones).

>

> Is there "patents" on gameplay?

>

> Or on some game mechanism/interface?

>

> My concern is because we are about to launch a game that its gameplay looks

> very much to a classic, but have many more features.

>

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>   


-- 

Alex Amsel
Tuna Technologies Ltd (Sheffield, UK)
Cross Platform Game Development
Tel: +44 (0)114 266 2211  Mob: +44(0)7771 524 632