Video Games and Intellectual Property

I'd like to thank Jack Schecter, of the "IP Insight" column of The Federal Lawyer.

His column in the October/November issue of that periodical, called "Grand Theft Video: Judge Gives Gamemakers Hope for Combating Clones" proved surprisingly thought provoking.

Regular readers of this blog and its precursor know that I follow IP issues at least casually.

Schecter discusses a case out of the federal district court for the district of New Jersey, Tetris Holding v. XIO Interactive, the fight over a clone of the famous video game "Tetris." The clone, by XIO Interactive, is known as "Mino."

The case turned on the idea/expression dichotomy in copyright law. The defendant contended that it could use the idea behind Tetris (which is accurate), plus any functionally necessary attributes of the game. Further, it contended that pretty much everything about Tetris fell into one or the other of those categories, so it was free to copy.

For a summary of the decision, rejecting XIO's argument, go to Schecter's column via the link above. For the whole decision, go here instead.

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