RE: [GD-General] Copyright on games

[Jamie F. <ja...@qu...>]

even if there had been a patent on chess (hard, given that it predates
patent law :), it would have expired a long time ago :)

j


-----Original Message-----
From: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of
Gareth Lewin
Sent: 04 March 2003 10:10
To: gam...@li...
Subject: RE: [GD-General] Copyright on games


> My understanding is that it's patents you have to worry
> about.  Patents
> being for the "idea" and copyright being for the "implementaion".
>
> So you could copy the basics of the game idea, but you would
> have to make it
> look different. (Unless they have a patent)
>
> The easiest way to find out what matters is to contact the
> creators of the
> original game, and a lawyer :)

Hmm, that makes a lot more sense to me thank you. So theoretically, unless
the gameplay itself is patented (not likely ofcourse), a game that looks
totally differant but is the same gameplay would be legal.

I wonder how this passes over to more standard games like Chess, Bridge etc
? I doubt anyone has a patent on that :)


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