Game Design Patents - Protecting the Internal Mechanisms of Video Games?

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the importance of patents as a means to protect the design of video games. It also includes a survey of relevant patents in the on-line database of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The background theory explains the basics of Intellectual Property law, and attempts to highlight the differences in protection provided by trademarks, copyright, trade secrets and patents. Furthermore, the video game industry of 2003 is analyzed; a review of the different types of companies involved in game production is presented and their internal relationships and dependencies are reviewed. This section also describes the cycle of innovation in games and introduces two important concepts; Game Design Patents and Game Design Patterns. The former defines a specific category of patents aimed at protecting the mechanics and design of video games, while the latter is a methodology describing different interaction elements in games. The findings from these sections are applied to research, which includes interviews with a game designer, a patent attorney and a summary of opinions posted on discussion forums on the Internet, to form a coherent picture of the current status of patents in the video game industry. The second part of the report includes an in-depth study of 50 relevant design patents, an analysis of the current classification in the database of the USPTO and a number of alternative classification methods to further investigate the character of these patents. The results have been used to see if there is any other way, besides the current classification, to arrange the patents to the benefit of game developers or pretty much anyone who does not have the legal and technical competence of a patent attorney. The report concludes that currently, patents are not considered an effective way to protect the design of a video game, and developers mainly rely on copyright and trade secret law to protect their work. Developers are generally not concerned with the risks of patent infringement, as most patent owners do not actively enforce their patents. However, a number of future scenarios were discussed in which patents may gain increased importance. As for the second part of the survey, it proved extremely difficult to find an alternative way to categorize game design patents since they are built on established legal abstractions constructed solely to aid the examiners at the patent office. Attempts were made to use game genres and design patterns to model the substance of each one of the 50 design patents, but none of the methods proved adequately satisfying. The study of patent references show that a number of patent classes are particularly relevant, and these should be monitored in order to keep track of new issuances. Coming up with a solution that effectively manages the pool of existing patents is another matter though and this is particularly troublesome since patents can stay valid for up to 20 years.