Posts
THE FAMILY GUY v. JIMINY CRICKET (Copyright Fair Use)
Bourne Co. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. et al. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. March 16, 2009 Ok, the case isn’t REALLY Peter Griffin versus a…
News: Sheperd Farey/AP Copyright Dispute Images
This isn’t exactly video game related, so I won’t take up much of your time, but if anyone was looking for a side-by-side comparison of the Shepherd Farey Obama poster next to…
Ross Dannenberg Speaking at GDC 2009
I will be speaking at GDC 2009 in San Francisco, California. The event is at the Moscone Center, and my session is scheduled for Friday at NOON! Yes, I drew the Friday…
Patent Reform 2009
It appears that congress is again going to try to pass patent reform legislation. Rather than recreate the wheel, and based on other deadlines I have today, feel free to read the…
Case: Zynga v. CLZ Concepts (filed 2/27/09, ND Cal.) [copyright]
Zynga Game Network on February 27, 2009, filed suit against CLZ Concepts, Jeff Chen, and James Zhang asserting copyright infringement. The case is 3:09-cv-00854-EMC in the District Court for the Northern District…
CASE SETTLED: Square Enix v. various sword retailers
On February 24, 2009, Square Enix settled another lawsuit. According to its press release, the lawsuit named at least four national wholesalers of unlicensed sword replicas and their principals that have infringed…
New Look/Features for the Patent Arcade
Well I finally got around to upgrading the blog to Google’s new beta service, so we’ve updated the look and feel a little bit, while keeping the overall simple header theme. New…
Case: Harmonix v. Konami (Mass.)
Harmonix and Viacom jointly filed suit in the District of Massachusetts against Konami for patent infringement. The lawsuit alleges Konami’s “ROCK REVOLUTION” video game infringes U.S. Pat. No., 7,459,624 entitled “Game controller…
Resource: Free video game course instruction
I don’t normally post non-legal content, but this one is a good resource for budding video game designers: 70+ Open Courseware Links for Game Designers and Developers. Most of the resources appear…
News: Santa Clara Law School Hosts Open House in Second Life
From Leigh Jones, Associate editor at the National Law Journal: –In what is considered the first event of its kind, Santa Clara University School of Law is holding an open house in…
News: Speaking at GDC 2009
I just wanted to take a minute and let everyone know that I will be speaking at GDC 2009 (March 25-27, 2009) this year. I’m not sure which day my presentation will…
News: Guitar Hero/Rock Band for a REAL guitar
You know, I’ve been waiting for over a year since I first heard about Guitar Rising, a Guitar Hero style video game that you can play with a REAL guitar. It seems…
New Case: Worlds.com v. NCSoft (E.D.Tex., filed Dec. 24, 2008)
Merry Christmas, you’ve been sued. It’s not uncommon for plaintiffs to file lawsuits around the holidays in order to “turn the screws” on defendants, and that appears to be the case here.…
Case Update: Nintendo v. Nyko SETTLED
As previously reported, Nintendo sued Nyko for design patent infringement and trademark infringement over the Wii’s nunchuk controller. On Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008, the parties filed a STIPULATION for Dismissal of Action…
In memoriam: A loss to the Virtual World community…
The Patent Arcade is sad to report that we have lost one of our own. Steve Davidson, a friend, colleague, and groundbreaking attorney in the video game and virtual world fields, passed…
Case: Capcom v. MKR (ND Cal. 2008)
Capcom Co., Ltd. et. al. v. The MKR Group N.D. Cal. 2008 (by Shawn Gorman) While relatively short lived, this legal battle provides several insights for both video game producers and their…
Articles about IP in Virtual Worlds
I recently wrote a series of short articles for LinuxInsider regarding IP issues as they arise in virtual worlds and video games. Each article was necessarily short, so there wasn’t room to…
Case: THQ v. Activision – SETTLED
Well, as is often the case, the cost to settle far outweighs the cost to litigate to prove a point. It appears that is true here. As we previously reported, THQ sued…
News: Trademark Registration for Second Life Avatar
Its not every day that we get to report TRADEMARK news, so this is a refreshing change from the norm. On Nov. 11, 2008, the United States Patent & Trademark Office granted…
New Case: Motiva v. Nintendo (patent infringement)
Well, it looks like Nintendo has been sued for patent infringement again. This time by Motiva LLC, for infringement of U.S. Pat. No. 7,292,151, which is directed to a “Human Movement Measurement…