William John Stoffel Esq.

Patent and IP Law
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Toy and Game inventions- IP protections


Q. How can toys and games be protected by Intellectual Property ?

Inventors can protect toys, games and game boards by using:

 

  • Utility patents - Toys and games may be covered by device and method patents
  • design patents  - Design patents can protect toys and games with a new and nonobvious ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The design patent protects only the appearance of an article, but not its structural or functional features.
  • Trademarks and trade dress  - Trademarks identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.
    Trade dress refers to characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party.
    •   Trademarks can be registered with  the USPTO
  • Copyrights  - US Copyright protection (title 17, U. S. Code) protects  “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.
    • For example, a game board can be copyrighted  to prevent copying of the board. 
    • Copyrights can be registered with the US copyright office .

 

 Note: if you are considering making a physical game, you might also want to consider making/patenting a computer software or internet version of the game. 

 

Note What Is Not Protected by Copyright?
Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others:
• Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression
• Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents
• Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration
• Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars)
Source: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wwp