To register or patent intellectual property? what is the process? would it be more condusive to time constraints to go through a lawyer or accountant then to do it myself? is it costly to acquire IP rights?

For Copyrights http://www.copyright.gov/

For Patents http://www.uspto.gov/

Both have FAQs and assorted How To pages. Registering a copyright should be pretty straight forward but patents are complex and you will almost certainly require a specialist (expensive) patent lawyer.

For an overview of copyrights, patents, trademarks etc read this Gamedev article http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1985.asp

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

[edited by - obscure on March 5, 2004 2:05:39 AM]

[edited by - obscure on March 5, 2004 2:06:26 AM]

I wouldn''t bother with patenting IP.

a) It takes an age

b) It costs a fortune

c) People can still rip you off, you have to decide whether or not you want to risk a costly legal battle.

If you are talking about creating IP and copyrighting it, as long as you can prove you created it and when you created it, you''ve got basic copyright in a lot of countries anyway.


What are the specifics of what you want to do?

basically to make sure that if i purpose an idea for a game to a publisher that they cannot turn around and send it to a different developer or to use the ideas/plot for the game later on down the road without sending me some kick back or royalties. im just trying to protect myself from potential land mines

What you are talking about is a commercially valuable idea (aka a trade secret). The only way to protect an idea is with an NDA. Read the section on Trade Secrets in that third article (the Gamedev one) I linked to above.

However you need to be aware of the following.
1. There are far too many ideas and far too few development teams capable of turning an idea into a game.
2. For the above reason publishers don't buy ideas (or accept them for free) unless they come from a development company with the skill & resources available to make the game.

This is a very very frequently asked question and a full explanation of why companies aren't interested can be found at http://www.obscure.co.uk/faq_idea.shtml

If you do represent a development team with the necessary skills then you will require an NDA and then you will need to submit your idea in the form of some fairly specific documents and a working demo/prototype. Full details of what you need to send can be found at http://www.obscure.co.uk/the_pitch.shtml

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

[edited by - obscure on March 5, 2004 3:27:43 AM]

What Obscure just said.

The chance of a publisher buying an idea from an individual from the outside is tiny. Everybody in the games industry has a killer idea, and it''s the dream of many artists, programmers and designers to one day have their employer or publisher create a game based on their idea.

The best route to getting your idea turned into reality is to get a job in the industry and work your way up the chain. Then, and only then will your ideas be taken seriously.

Unless your idea is effectively a license to print money, you''ll have a very tough time getting it made.

yea i actually just got done with a business course and i was fearful that even if you do patent or have an NDA, you can minutely modify something, call it your own design and just like that call it your own. I read a case study of where a company that built sheds patented their design, another company changed the bolt size on the skylight of the shed from 3/4 inch. to 3/8 and under patent laws were completely justified in calling it their own design. Not very honest business practice but i suppose most people are just out there for the buck.

100% agree with what''s been said. The game idea of the century is just l''Arlesienne, specially at GameDev. It''s not Hollywood, sorry to be harsh, but a good game is not a good scenary. It''s a good game design, this means a blending of ideas based on the game theory, the technical constraints and eventually an artistic viewpoint and a story. A game becomes something during its developpement process, ideas, even the best technical novelties in AI or 3D are nothing out of implementation.

The patent system is completly doomed unless for those like MS who have unlimited funds. If you are not of the greedy ones, perharps go "Open Source". I mean make a web site to present your idea. If it''s really a killing idea, ppl will rush to the address. Everyone will know you did it. You''ll maybe not get much cash from this idea directly, but you''ll get fame, and possibly you''ll find an indy team or a company to develop it. Does anyone here agree with this advice ?

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Else quoting : People can still rip you off. I have seen a link to a small company specialized in patent insurances (Dunno the right english term). Does anyone has some feedback on it ? The purpose is to makes the small entities bigger in front of the justice I suppose. Still it requires $$$