IP- Patents and Trade Secrets

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From the course by Michigan State University

Business of Games and Entrepreneurship

641 ratings

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Michigan State University

Business of Games and Entrepreneurship

641 ratings

Course 3 of 5 in the Specialization Game Design and Development

As well as a form of art and entertainment, games are about business. Whether you want to work at a game studio, start your own business or make games as a hobby, recognizing the dynamic landscape of the videogame industry is critical to finding your place. This course will introduce you to game production, project management, teamwork skills, and how to position your game ideas and yourself in the broader marketplace. By the end of the course, you will be able to develop an impactful portfolio of game work to get noticed and/or develop an effective business plan to bring your game to market.

From the lesson

Show Me the Money!

The reality is that making games isn't just about art and creativity, though sometimes some of us wish that were the case. All art has economic considerations. Creative people need food, shelter and safe creative spaces to work within. Thus, one way or another the question of the economics of games is going to prove important. So understanding the flow of money in the game industry, as well as how to protect your own ideas will prove paramount in being able to make the craft of making games an economically justifiable activity.

IP - Intellectual Property4:31

IP - Copyright11:27

IP- Patents and Trade Secrets6:10

IP - Protecting Yourself9:51

Meet the Instructors

Casey O'Donnell
Associate Professor
Media and Information

[MUSIC]

Welcome back.

So we've been talking about intellectual property rights on how you

can protect your ideas.

We've already talked about copyright and trademark.

But now I wanna talk about patents and trade secrets.

Because those are also useful tools.

So let's start with patents.

What is a patent?

Well patents are actually based on a federal law, and

that's an important distinction here which I'll get back to in a second.

Patent law protects inventions, at least in the United States, and

the idea behind it is the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for

sale, or selling a particular invention.

It is literally a protection of your right to produce something.

So what kinds of things are patentable?

Well, this is where things get kind of interesting

because the basic idea is that patents are supposed to be any new or useful process.

Machine or manufacturing mechanism or even possibly the composition of matter,

which is the way things get put together, which is where drug patents come from.

And so it becomes a little bit vague about, well, what of those things, right?

What's a process?

Because a process can be a business process, but

it could also be something like graphics production techniques, a user interface,

a communication mechanism, a game mechanic.

But it could also be something like a machinery.

Right, so something that is programmed,

the software behind a computer and some of you may actually be aware that software

patents are pretty fraught area of patent law, and not everybody

agrees with the kinds of things that are patentable in the world of software.

Now, in video games, the truth is that not a lot of patents are out there.

There are some, and

most of them relate to the ways in which we interact with a game, right?

And so sometimes, so the heads up arrow,

letting you know which direction to go in a game, is one of those patents, so

there are things that have been patented in terms of game mechanics or systems.

But it isn't very common in video games.

Now take something like non-digital games for example, so card games and

board games, patents are far more common.

So it just kind of depends on the standards of practice.

But as I've said, in video games patents don't get used a lot,

which isn't to say that they won't in the future.

So, let's talk a little bit more about patents, because, they're difficult, and

expensive, and time consuming to get.

Which is probably why most game developers don't do it, because they're so busy sort

of coming up with an idea and then moving on to the next thing, that the whole

process of acquiring a patent isn't something that most of them think about.

It's also important that oftentimes you have to consult a patent attorney.

They're going to do a patent search and help you identify whether or

not this is a thing that you can patent.

It's also important that you be aware of other people who have patented

similar technologies.

If you go and look, and you can, right?

So go to Google Patents, take a look at some of the things out there.

I recommend searching for Magic the Gathering or Pokemon.

But you can go look at what other people have patented related to games.

And many patents reference one another.

They say, okay this is how this patent is different from this one.

You have to really differentiate yourself.

You have to prove that your patent is unique and interesting and

offers something.

But the other thing about a patent is that it expires and

that mechanism enters the public domain.

So let's talk about trade secrets, because that's an important one, and

it's probably been one of the more widely used in the video game industry.

So, a trade secret, believe it or not, has no protection at the federal level,

at least in the United States, and kind of exists as a creature of state law.

So, you'll wanna take a look.

How does your state define trade secrets, and what protections do those things have?

But in general, to qualify for a trade secret, your mechanism or your idea

must be valuable to your business, it must be actively kept a secret within your

business, and must be generally unknown throughout the rest of the industry.

So you can't consider using the Unity game engine a trade secret, right,

lots of people use it, so it's not a secret.

But if you had some particular subprocess or method through which you were doing

things, it is possible that something like that would be a trade secret.

So trade secrets are valid as long as the information remains secret and

continues to hold value for a company.

So the best example of this is something like the recipe for Coca-Cola.

It's a highly, highly protected secret.

And recipes like this, while you could

have a recipe copyrighted, it would have long ago entered the public domain.

Or if it had been patented, if it was a unique combination of things.

So, recipes don't really qualify for copyright, trademark, or

patent protection and yet the company needs to protect this asset.

So, if you can't copyright or patent something, you have to keep it secret.

And the upside is is that as long as you can keep that thing secret and

as long as it retains value, you have that edge.

So keeping a trade secret is really important, how do you do that?

Well, you should probably use something like a nondisclosure agreement or an NDA.

Employees need to be confidential about the kinds of things, but even then,

right, all it takes is one disgruntled employee to release the information and

suddenly it's no longer a trade secret.

So, maybe even beyond that, you need to limit the number of employees who

have clearance or access or the ability to even see those things.

You may resort to things like passwords, cabinet locks, access codes, different

ways that you can sort of keep a thing out of reach of people who might be curious.

So now you've had an opportunity to get a little bit familiar with variety of

intellectual property rights protection mechanisms.

So we're gonna talk a little bit more about how do you

make value out of those things.

I'll see you on the next video.

[MUSIC]

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