Quote:

Original post by Steadtler Quote: Original post by CodaKiller Quote: • Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U. S. origin. OK so does that mean I can register after someone has infringed on my rights so that I can take them to court or does that mean I would have needed to been registered at the time the infringement took place? As far as copyright goes, as frob said your rights are automatic and last till some time after your death (varies from a country to another). So you dont need to do anything to prevent people from stealing your code. Registering a trademark (for example, the name of your engine), is different. Trademarks reserve your right to use that name for commercial purposes, so it goes to whoever register it first, however there is a fee $. Frankly I wouldnt bother about any of this until you are ready to start selling something. Im sure your work is something to be proud of but there are way too many excellent, free, open-source engines out there for people to bother stealing it.

As I said before I made a FPS demo of my engine that I would like to show but I want to make sure my work is protected before I do that.

So how is my work protected if I can't take someone to court, what am I going to do, tell them that if they don't stop replication / distribution my software I will cry?

Also how do I register a trademark?

Quote:

Original post by Falling Sky Is this a joke? Seriously, if you have invested the amount of time it would take to create a game engine thats worth worrying this much about, I would hope you would invest more than 5 seconds researching about how to go about protecting it, maybe going to the extent of looking up the definition of copyright, patent, and IP..maybe?

I didn't want to get scammed so I thought it would be best to discuss this with a large group of fellow programmers who may have already done this.

Quote:

Original post by CodaKiller So how is my work protected if I can't take someone to court, what am I going to do, tell them that if they don't stop replication / distribution my software I will cry?

What did you expect, that some special police force goes round looking at every application in the world to check they aren't stealing your ideas/code?

You're protected because you are ABLE to take them to court, but you aren't really protected because you can't AFFORD to go through the whole legal process unless you are a big company with a proper budget for such things.

Quote:

Original post by d000hg Quote: Original post by CodaKiller So how is my work protected if I can't take someone to court, what am I going to do, tell them that if they don't stop replication / distribution my software I will cry? What did you expect, that some special police force goes round looking at every application in the world to check they aren't stealing your ideas/code? You're protected because you are ABLE to take them to court, but you aren't really protected because you can't AFFORD to go through the whole legal process unless you are a big company with a proper budget for such things.

If I can't take them to court for infringement then what would the charges be?

Can you provide a concrete example of a scenario that you are trying to prevent from occurring? Honestly, I'm just having a hard time trying to figure out what it is that you're afraid will happen.

Read this to get some information on intellectual property rights.

If someone is stealing your code and you do not have the financial means to sue, you will have a hard time defending your rights. That's the nature of the beast-- and to be fair, because copyright is ultimately an economic motivator, ideally the legal system should only be used because preventing infringement is economically viable and worthwhile. Although that's more my personal ideology than any kind of basis for why these suits are brought.

Also as for trademark law-- it goes to the first person to use the trademark in commerce, not who registers first. Like copyright, there are some protections that attach the moment you use the name in commerce to identify your product (under US law at least). That's why trademark searches are expensive-- you can't just rely on a search with the USPTO. You need to register your mark if you're going to bring a suit under federal trademark law, but states have their own trademark laws and the laws of unfair competition deal with this issue as well.

Quote:

Original post by prh99 What exactly would you patent about the game engine? I ask cause you'll need to answer it in order to get a patent. There is some definite erosion in software patentability after a recent series of rulings. The Bilski decision from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has pretty much said pure software patents that are neither tied to a specific machine nor change something into a different state are not patentable.

This is good to see as that is pretty much the case in Europe as well. I had always thought that pure software patents or patents on algorithms were easy to get in the U.S.

As far as your question about selling a product under your own name without forming a company, while it can be done, its definitely a poor idea.

The problem comes from the fact that, if you sell products personally whether its considered person-to-person or even through a business that is formed as a sole-proprietorship or partnership, then you, yourself are personally liable for any damages your software makes, or anyone claims it to make. What that means is that anyone awarded damages against you can come after your personal property in order to fulfill the amount owed them. They can take your house, your car, maybe even get your wages garnished.

You want, at minimum, an LLC (or Limited Liability Corporation) which, rather obviously, limits your personal liability. Now, if anyone is awarded damages against your company, they can only come after the property of the company, rather than your own personal property.

In most states it not terribly difficult to set up an LLC or other Corp, and depending on the type there are different requirements in terms of shareholder rights, company charter, executive officers, and also different filing fees and tax statuses. Its possible to set up one of these ventures for less than $500.

Now comes the usual disclaimer... I am not a lawyer, nor are the majority of the folks here. Any warnings we supply are not to be taken as legal advice, merely as a warning of some potential consequences and a friendly pointer in the right direction.

Quote:

Original post by madelelaw Read this to get some information on intellectual property rights. If someone is stealing your code and you do not have the financial means to sue, you will have a hard time defending your rights. That's the nature of the beast-- and to be fair, because copyright is ultimately an economic motivator, ideally the legal system should only be used because preventing infringement is economically viable and worthwhile. Although that's more my personal ideology than any kind of basis for why these suits are brought. Also as for trademark law-- it goes to the first person to use the trademark in commerce, not who registers first. Like copyright, there are some protections that attach the moment you use the name in commerce to identify your product (under US law at least). That's why trademark searches are expensive-- you can't just rely on a search with the USPTO. You need to register your mark if you're going to bring a suit under federal trademark law, but states have their own trademark laws and the laws of unfair competition deal with this issue as well.

My understanding, based on conversations with IP lawyers (one of which is my sister) is that trademarks are not automatically granted, in fact unless the application is properly filled out they can be rejected - with a none refundable filing fee of course, which is not cheap. There can be 'unregistered trademarks' where a company trades long enough under a certain brand+industry such that it can call out someone else for trying to pass off as them. But they are so difficult and expensive to prove and enforce that they are not worth anyones time really. And certainly cannot be relied upon as a IP protection mechanism or protecting against someone registering a mark.

---

To CodaKiller:

Unless you plan to brand and sell your engine then the notion of trademark is irrelevant. More so if you have no interest in registering as an official business. Trademarks are to protect brands so a specific ordering of characters and images which comprise a logo is what is trademarkable. Copyright applies automatically to the work of art but no trademark is automatic.

Your code/software falls under copyright automatically but again a software patent would not make sense as protection unless you were selling your engine (assuming you were able to patent any of it at all). Even then, if someone were to pirate your game you could not take them to court for infringing your patent as it would simply not apply. To protect your engine you would have to make it really good and expensive and have strict licencing rules which you could enforce with all that profit you were gaining from the sale of those expensive licences.

Anyways sadly, for anybody not overflowing with money, enforcing your intellectual property rights is usually too expensive in both time and money. Time better spent catering to your loyal customers and improving your product and its brand. Thats why I always wonder when people obsess over licencing and piracy of their software. Just get on with it. Really though, as a smaller company selling software you are well placed to not try to fight the wind but bend with it and consider other business models (extremely insightful but perhaps overexcited at parts).

Quote:

Original post by Daerax Quote: Original post by madelelaw Read this to get some information on intellectual property rights. If someone is stealing your code and you do not have the financial means to sue, you will have a hard time defending your rights. That's the nature of the beast-- and to be fair, because copyright is ultimately an economic motivator, ideally the legal system should only be used because preventing infringement is economically viable and worthwhile. Although that's more my personal ideology than any kind of basis for why these suits are brought. Also as for trademark law-- it goes to the first person to use the trademark in commerce, not who registers first. Like copyright, there are some protections that attach the moment you use the name in commerce to identify your product (under US law at least). That's why trademark searches are expensive-- you can't just rely on a search with the USPTO. You need to register your mark if you're going to bring a suit under federal trademark law, but states have their own trademark laws and the laws of unfair competition deal with this issue as well. My understanding, based on conversations with IP lawyers (one of which is my sister) is that trademarks are not automatically granted, in fact unless the application is properly filled out they can be rejected - with a none refundable filing fee of course, which is not cheap. There can be 'unregistered trademarks' where a company trades long enough under a certain brand+industry such that it can call out someone else for trying to pass off as them. But they are so difficult and expensive to prove and enforce that they are not worth anyones time really. And certainly cannot be relied upon as a IP protection mechanism or protecting against someone registering a mark.

The distinction is, I believe, the difference between US and UK law. Under U.S. law I can assure you (and as our OP is from North Carolina, this applies) that at least some protection will be granted to a non-infringing trade name once it's used in commerce. I qualified my statement with "under U.S. law" for a reason. Contrary to popular belief, IP laws are not treated equally among the various countries (and sometimes aren't acknowledged at all), and I'm not familiar enough with UK law to say whether or not you assessment is accurate.

This is primarily a US law issue, as few other countries would be able to establish the requisite jurisdiction and it's doubtful that our OP could afford to bring suit against an infringer in the UK.