Copyrights
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…
New Case: THQ v. Activision Blizzard
On October 23, 2008, THQ filed a new lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for trade dress and copyright infringement regarding Activision’s planned release of “SCORE International Baja 1000 The Official Game” in late…
Case: MDY v. Blizzard (D.Az. 2008) [C]
MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., et al. (D. Ariz. 2008) Update on December 14, 2010: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s 2009 injunction barring the…
Case Update: Willis v. Electronic Arts (D.Nev.)
Willis v. Electronic Arts U.S. District Court, District of Nevada Case No. 08-cv-01311, Filed September, 29, 2008 Case Update: This case was closed on November 18, 2009, following notice of voluntary dismissal…
Case: Frybarger v. IBM (9th Cir. 1987) – Copyright
Frybarger v. Int’l Business Mach. Corp. 812 F.2d 525 (9th Cir. 1987) Before the introduction of sprawling virtual environments, ragdoll physics, and parallel GPUs, the video game industry lived in an 8-bit…
Case: Incredible Tech. v. Virtual Tech (7th Cir. 2005)
Incredible Technologies, Inc. v. Virtual Technologies, Inc. 400 F.3d 1007 (7th Cir. 2005) If someone familiar with Golden Tee, the ubiquitous pub golf video game, was asked to describe its unique characteristics,…
Case: Sega v. Accolade (9th Cir. 1992) – Copyright Fair Use
Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade Inc. 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cit. 1992) If you owned a Sega Genesis at any time in your life, chances are you will NEVER forget the singsong…
News: Korean Copyright Suit over Advent Rising
I don’t normally track foreign video game cases, but perhaps I should. However, it does make one more category of work for me in view of all my regular work and blogging…
Case: Eros v. Simon (SETTLED 2007) – Second Life
Somehow this well reported case got overlooked here at the Patent Arcade, and that appears to be because I thought I’d already written about it. In any event, it now gets its…
Case: Eros v. Leatherwood (Settled, March 2008)
Eros, the maker of the Second Life sex bed, sued the avatar Volkov Catteneo for illegally copying and selling unlicensed copies of the sex bed, thereby infringement the intellectual property of Eros.…
Article: Hey, that’s MY game!
Ever wonder what the basic principles are for protecting your video game based on intellectual property law? Steve and I wrote this article, recently published on Gamasutra, that provides a brief introduction…
Case: MGA v Ubisoft (Settled)
From IP Law360: MGA Entertainment, makers of the popular Bratz dolls, will hand over $13.2 million to video game company Ubisoft Entertainment, after an arbitrator ruled that Ubisoft had not violated the…
Case: CBC v. Major League Baseball
C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P., et al. — F.3d —, 2007 WL 2990366, 84 U.S.P.Q.2d 1328 (8th Cir. 2007) In a much watched case, on…
News: Potential DMCA fair use relief on the way?
As reported on GamePolitics.com, Later today the ECA will announce its support for HR1201, known as the Fair Use Act of 2007. The proposed legislation will give consumers limited rights to circumvent…
Case Update: MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. et al
MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. et al.United States District Court, District of ArizonaCase No. 2:2006cv02555, Filed October 25, 2006 On October 25, 2006, MDY Industries, LLC (“MDY”) filed a declaratory…
News: man gets two years in jail for video game crime.
An Illinois man was sentenced to two years in prison for violating copyright law through the unauthorized sale of video games on his Web site, the U.S. Department of Justice announced late…
News: quoted in USA Today re Facebook lawsuit
Well its not a video game lawsuit, but interesting nonetheless. And, yes, this post could be considered shameless self-promotion. Nonetheless, I was recently quoted in USA Today in an article regarding the…
Is artistic style a new type of Video Game IP?
Courts have held that artists’ copyright protection can extend beyond their literal pictorial works, and some courts have even insinuated that an artist can receive copyright expression for their artistic style, e.g.,…
Case Update: Konami v. Roxor (E.D.Tex, SETTLED 2007)
Konami v. Roxor (E.D.Tex 2007 – SETTLED) We previously reported that Konami Corporation sued Roxor Games, Inc. in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleging patent infringement, trademark…