Copyright/Trademark Infringement

[InTheWoodlands]

I know next to nothing about laws pertaining to copyright/trademark infringement. To what extent do they apply to iPhone apps? Am I allowed to create a game which is identical to a commercially released board game as long as I call it something else? An example is the "4 in a Row" game. The developer of this game did a very nice job even down to the etchings on the playing pieces. As a developer, do you have to get the permission of someone like Milton Bradley?

 

[DreamPod]

Depends on how close you are. For example, Scrabulous, a Scrabble clone on Facebook, is being sued by Hasbro because their board has the exact same pattern of bonus squares as Scrabble.

 

[cheekybobcat]

Just to be safe, change something around. Add a little feature here and there or just switch stuff up. You can keep the basic idea of the game the same but you don't want to clone a game and slap a different name on it and call it original.

 

[plumbingandtech]

Buy an hour of a trademark lawyer's time to be sure.

Or waste 5 months of work only to find apple yanks it off the store because milton bradley or someone says you are infringing on their trademark.

 

[InTheWoodlands]

Buy an hour of a trademark lawyer's time to be sure.

Or waste 5 months of work only to find apple yanks it off the store because milton bradley or someone says you are infringing on their trademark.

True. I would assume that Apple has lawyers working this angle to protect themselves.

 

[Night Spring]

Buy an hour of a trademark lawyer's time to be sure.

Or waste 5 months of work only to find apple yanks it off the store because milton bradley or someone says you are infringing on their trademark.

That would be infringing on their *copyright*. Infringing on trademark would be if you wrote a word game and called it "Skrabble." That can be considered infringing a trademark even if your game has nothing in common with Scrabble other than being in the same general category as Scrabble, that is, a word game. Depending on how broad the trademark registration for Scrabble is, you could impinge on the trademark if you name *any* game something that was similar to Scrabble.

Trademark infringements, however, are easy to correct -- just call your game something else! Copyright infringement is another story altogether -- correcting a copyright infringement would probably require you to go back to the drawing board and redesign your game from scratch.

 

[plumbingandtech]

That would be infringing on their *copyright*. Infringing on trademark would be if you wrote a word game and called it "Skrabble." That can be considered infringing a trademark even if your game has nothing in common with Scrabble other than being in the same general category as Scrabble, that is, a word game. Depending on how broad the trademark registration for Scrabble is, you could impinge on the trademark if you name *any* game something that was similar to Scrabble.

Trademark infringements, however, are easy to correct -- just call your game something else! Copyright infringement is another story altogether -- correcting a copyright infringement would probably require you to go back to the drawing board and redesign your game from scratch.

Good catch. Thank you. I stand corrected.