Weigensberg and Enkeshafi Write About IP Protection for Videogame Characters
Pryor Cashman Partner Joshua Weigensberg and Associate Parmida Enkeshafi co-authored an article for Law360 discussing different intellectual property protections available to protect video game creators’ rights in their characters.
In “Leveling Up IP Protections For Video Game Icons' Film Debuts,” they explain which aspects of a video game character can and can’t be protected by copyright law:
Copyright law will not protect the name, standing alone, or the general idea of a character. Moreover, the U.S. Copyright Office will not register a copyright in a character separate and apart from the work in which the character appears. Rather, copyright protection extends to the detailed expression of the character in a tangible, fixed form.
Josh and Parmida also discuss how characters can be protected through trademarks:
Video game characters can function as trademarks when they are source-identifying, and the companies that own such trademarks may enforce them against infringers. Many courts have recognized trademark protection for graphic characters.
[…]The USPTO manual advises that, in examining whether a character is being used in a trademark function, it may look to whether the character appears on the packaging or physical media on which a creative work is sold and whether the character appears on displays associated with the creative work.
The article also lists several steps creators can take to maximize protections, minimize legal risk, and more.
Read the full Law360 article using the PDF above or link below.
