What is the easiest way to check that someone posses copyrights of a given game (in terms of the idea of the game but not specific implementation)?
For example, say the Snake Game is copyrighted or not?

Thanks.

What is the easiest way to check that someone posses copyrights of a given game (in terms of the idea of the game but not specific implementation)?
For example, say the Snake Game is copyrighted or not?

Thanks.

Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think they can copyright a concept though they can trademark characters and copyright source code. For instance, making a pacman clone would be legal only if you didn't call it pacman and maybe you would even need to use different characters but I think it would be hard to trademark a pie shape and standard ghost shapes.

usanal, don't confuse copyright with trademark. Gameplay can't be copyrighted. Read this forum's FAQ -- your question has been asked before MANY times, and the FAQ contains a lot of info you can get most easily by simply reading it.

Thanks.

I just want to check if a given game is trademark of anyone.
I've searched for snake if it has an owner but couldn't get anything.
?!

You can hire an IP attorney to do a title search for you.

Thanks.

I just want to check if a given game is trademark of anyone.
I've searched for snake if it has an owner but couldn't get anything.
?!

You may as well consider all games to be trademarked and copyrighted since the owners can still sue you even if they don't have any registered trademarks or copyrights to the game. It's questionable if they would win the case though but I see no reason to take the risk.

I just want to check if a given game is trademark of anyone.

Trademark or Copyright? In your first post you were asking about copyright but now you are asking about trademark. The two aren't the same so you need to be clear about which you want to know about.

Copyright lasts for the lifetime of the author of a work, plus 70 years. Given that video games weren't invented 70 years ago you should assume that they are all still protected by copyright, unless the copyright holder has specifically put them into the public domain (and you have verifiable information to that effect from a reliable source - IE the copyright holders own web site). If you want to know for sure you will need to find the current holder of the copyright or hire someone (such as an IP lawyer) to find them for you.