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>Casual Games and Casual Copying
>Imagine releasing a new flash game on the net and then finding out that someone else made your game into a Facebook/iPhone application without your knowledge. The designer of a certain casual game, Boomshine, Daniel Miller, doesn’t have to imagine. His story illustrates why it’s important to understand and consider the range of intellectual property protections available for your next game. Miller has filed a complaint in the Northern District of California, accusing the creator of a copycat game, known as ChainRxn, Yao Wei Yeo, and Facebook of copyright infringement, and improperly allowing the game to remain posted even after being notified of the alleged infringement. In both Boomshine and ChainRxn, the game begins with a set of multicolored dots bouncing around a black background. The player’s only interaction with the game is a single click to create an initial white circle, which causes any of the dots that collide… Continue Reading
>UK Looking To Offer Tax Incentives for the Gaming Industry
>In the Economic and Fiscal Strategy Report and Financial Statement and Budget Report issued today by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the United Kingdom, one of the key strategy points raised in conjunction with the overall fiscal strategy of the United Kingdom was to introduce “tax relief for the UK’s video games industry.” Recognition at the highest levels of government of the financial impact of the video game industry — it truly is becoming a Gamer’s World.
>False Marking Suit Targets Activision
>A couple of weeks ago, Patent Compliance Group filed a qui tam action against Activision, alleging that Activision falsely marked Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, DJ Hero and Guitar Hero Smash Hits with inapplicable patent numbers or improperly as “patent pending.” This suit is one of a still-swelling movement of false patent marking suits following closely on the heels of the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Forest Group, Inc. v. Bon Tool Co., which held that damages for false patent marking should be calculated on a per article basis. This result has been that technology companies that sell large numbers of articles to consumers (e.g. video game companies) are at a high-risk of being targeted by one of these suits. A qui tam suit is actually brought on behalf of the U.S. government and provides for a fine of up to $500 for each improperly marked article. However, courts may… Continue Reading
>False Patent Marking
>The false marking statute, 35 U.S.C. § 292(a), is a little-known statute (unless you happen to be a patent attorney), that aims to prevent a patent owner from hindering competition by falsely marking their products with a patent number that does not cover the product. The false marking statute provides for damages of “not more than $500 for every such offense.” Furthermore, the false marking statute allows “any person” to sue for the penalty and split the award with the federal government in a qui tam action. In December 2009, the Federal Circuit, in the suit Forest Group, Inc. v. Bon Tool Co., clarified that “every such offense” meant that each article or product made by an company that was falsely marked will receive a fine of “not more than $500.” Previously, courts had various interpretations of the statute and might find a single offense and fine a company $500… Continue Reading
>Korea Inches Closer to Virtual Currency
>We’ve previously discussed here on the blog the increasing interplay between virtual assets and real-world money. In the coming years, the waves of government regulation and legal action will continue to build amplitude as the virtual assets created within virtual worlds become more easily and profitably converted to real world money. With virtual worlds growing in size and the online gaming player population booming, the development of the law in this area will have wide-reaching ramifications. The Supreme Court of Korea marked its involvement on Sunday, ruling that virtual currency used in online games may be exchanged for real-world cash. The ruling was the result of the acquittal of two gamers, who were originally charged with violating a Korean law targeted at online gambling, which banned the exchange of virtual currency for hard currency. The gamers were accused under the law with selling virtual currency know as “Aden” from a… Continue Reading
>Don’t Ignore Open Source License Terms
>If you embed open source software in a retail game or in gaming hardware, you should be diligent about compliance with the open source license terms. Otherwise, both you and your retailer may be in for an unpleasant surprise. The Software Freedom Conservancy, the non-profit corporate home of the open-source Linux application BusyBox, and Erik Andersen, one of the program’s principal developers, recently filed suit against a number of technology manufacturers and retailers, including Samsung and Best Buy. The suit accuses the defendants of infringing the copyright for Busybox by using the program in consumer products such as DVD players and HDTVs in violation of the terms of its license (the GNU General Public License, version 2). The complaint, filed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that the defendants were advised that the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only allowed… Continue Reading
>Hasbro and Atari Duel over a Licensing Spat
>Hasbro, the owner of the venerable Dungeons & Dragons intellectual property has brought suit against Atari, seeking to terminate Atari’s rights to develop video games based on Dungeons & Dragons. According to Hasbro, the license agreement contained (i) a confidentiality provision that prohibited Atari from disclosing non-public information about Dungeons & Dragons video games to third parties and (ii) provisions outlining minimum customer support requirements.As outlined in Hasbro’s complaint, Atari spun off divisions and went through multiple leadership changes, and then had a subsidiary of Namco Bandai (a key Hasbro competitor) take the reigns of certain Dungeons and Dragons games in certain European countries (thereby disclosing Hasbro confidential information to its competitor). Hasbro also includes in the complaint that it went country-by-country to assess Atari’s customer support of Dungeons & Dragons games and found the support lacking. Hasbro is seeking to terminate the license agreement and also brought claims for… Continue Reading
>Court rules Apple software is only licensed on Apple hardware
>As we have been covering, Apple brought a suit asserting copyright infringement stemming from PsyStar’s sales of non-Apple-Labeled computers with Apple’s operating system. This case presents interesting questions about hardware restrictions placed into EULAs and the viability of a copyright misuse defense based on those restrictions. Last Friday, a Northern District of California court put forth its attempt to answer some of these questions, ruling that Apple could restrict its license of Apple Software through its EULA to only allow installation on Apple-Labeled computers. The court believed the EULA language was a permissible restriction on the use copyrighted software itself, and not an impermissible tying restriction on a good or service outside of the monopoly granted by copyright. The court indicated that Apple could control the use of its copyrighted software through its EULA as long as consumers were not prohibited from using third-party operating systems or buying third-party hardware.In… Continue Reading
>Chinese Agencies Feud Over Regulation of WoW
>As Chinese fans of World of Warcraft (WoW) lament the series of shutdowns ordered by the Chinese government, rival agencies continue to squabble over regulatory control of Activision Blizzard’s online gaming juggernaut. The Chinese government’s carefully crafted, buttoned-down facade belies the bureaucratic turf war currently being waged by its Ministry of Culture and its General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP). The two agencies have been vying for control of online gaming oversight since June 2009, and there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight. World of Warcraft was launched in mainland China in 2005 and began steadily building momentum among China’s notoriously hard-to-crack gaming community. (Of the top ten online games in China, World of Warcraft is one of only three not produced in China and is the only U.S.-produced game.) Despite the steady accumulation of users (WoW China now boasts a roster of over 50 million individual… Continue Reading
>Storm8 and the Hazards of Gathering Personal Information from Gamers
>If not done properly, gathering personal data from gamers can bring game developers into the legal crosshairs. For instance, an iPhone game player recently sued game developer Storm8 for allegedly collecting phone numbers without permission from players who downloaded Storm8’s games from the iTunes app store. The complaint alleges the game software automatically collects and transmits the iPhone telephone number of each player back to Storm8, in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and California state laws. Back in August, reports surfaced that Storm8′s games transmitted players’ wireless numbers back to the company’s servers. Storm8 responded that previous versions of the game software had a bug – that has since been fixed. The lawsuit’s objective appears to be an injunction barring Storm8 from collecting phone numbers in the future. However, even if Storm8 engaged in some unauthorized data gathering, the player still may not have a legally recognizable… Continue Reading
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