If one invents a real life portal gun, can Valve sue them for copyright infringement? I am just curious, whether an owner of an artistic depiction of non-yet-existent device has any rights on that device in case it's actually invented later? Can owner use their rights, if any, to issue cease &amp; desist letters to inventors based on the fact that they were first to describe the thing, but not actually invent it? By artistic depictions I mean pictures, books, games, movies etc. So, in an unlikely case somebody implements a device that visually operates with principles akin to what was depicted in fictional ASHPD device, can Valve actually pretend it's infringing their rights? Or, alternatively, if somebody implements dynamic environments consisting of robotic composable panels, can Valve say that they had described this earlier, so they have the priority? And, as a side question — if somebody gets a patent on something non-yet-existant (e.g. "portal device") and gives vague description of a device that allows instant travel via connected portals, without giving any accent on how would it work — will this patent (being actually a work of fiction) be actually infringed later on actual invention?
Copyright infringement requires copying. The inventor could very reasonably invent a device without any reference or even knowledge of the artistic depiction in the Portal games. If the inventor hasn't copied anything, they aren't infringing copyright. Also, with respect to 2d depictions of 3d objects, only architectural drawings are protected in that way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_in_architecture_in_the_United_States With respect to your patent question, Valve hasn't publicly disclosed how to make a Portal gun, so an inventor of a Portal gun would not be blocked from patenting it. You can't get a patent without describing how to actually make the invention.
It depends on the game and what you copy. Games are an utter nightmare when it comes to IP law as so many parts of them cannot be copyrighted. Game rules for example cannot be copyrighted, nor can the concept itself. Some things can be copyrighted or trademarked. You cannot use the following: Names Written elements- while the rules themselves can't be copyrighted, rulebooks can Artwork and other visual elements Miniatures designed for the game Original characters Try to avoid these and the Hasbro lawyers should leave you alone.
Summary from comments. (Hat tip @jqning) Daniel Nathan Ballard writes here: [It] is not only improper it is UNLAWFUL and may result in serious repercussions... Such a misuse may constitute false advertising... (“It is no doubt true” that affixing the ‘Trade Mark Registered U.S. Patent Office” notice on goods that are not protected by a federally registered trademark creates “a prima facie case of fraud against the public… .”). ... Such use is also a form of “unclean hands” that can bar the user’s registration of the mark. ... Such a use may also bar the maintenance of an infringement case. ... And the fraudulent use of the trademark registration symbol DOES provide other marketplace participants with standing to oppose the user’s registration of the mark. http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/use-of---symbol-but-not-federally-registered-1125746.html
Technically, as I've read the unreal license agreement, the person who made the mod would owe Epic 5% royalties on all your sales related to the mod, even if they did not collect the sale price. You cannot be a party to a license you did not agree to, but Epic has very strange royalty terms that seem unreasonable on the surface and I'm not sure they've tested that in court. Here is what the license says: Royalty You agree to pay Epic a royalty equal to 5% of all worldwide gross revenue actually attributable to each Product, regardless of whether that revenue is received by you or any other person or legal entity, as follows: a. Gross revenue resulting from any and all sales of a Product to end users through any and all media, including but not limited to digital and retail; b. Gross revenue resulting from any and all in-app purchases, downloadable content, microtransactions, subscriptions, sale, transfer, or exchange of content created by end users for use with a Product, or redemption of virtual currency, either within a Product or made externally but which directly affect the operation of the Product; c. Gross revenue from any Kickstarter or other crowdfunding campaign which is directly associated with Product access or in-Product benefit (e.g., in a multi-tiered campaign, if an amount is established in an early tier solely for Product access, your royalty obligation will apply to that amount for each backer with the same access, but not on additional amounts in higher tiers based on ancillary benefits); d. Your revenue from in-app advertising and affiliate programs; e. Revenue from advance payments for a Product (from a publisher or otherwise); f. Revenue received in connection with a Product’s inclusion in a streaming, subscription, or other game-delivery service (e.g., Apple Arcade, Microsoft GamePass, or any similar or successor services), including without limitation development funds and bonuses; and g. Revenue in any other form actually attributable to a Product (unless excluded below). So the first part says "regardless of whether that revenue is received by you or any other person or legal entity". So somebody else may have revenue attributable to the product (aka a 50% increase in sales due to this mod), and you owe it even if you are not collecting or receiving that money directly. The last part (g) also says that revenue in any other form attributable to the product. Epic's license doesn't allow you to make a "front-end" to a paid product and release the front-end free, and collect money on the back-end. So if revenue is attributable to the product you develop, you owe royalties on the sales related to the product regardless of you collecting that income or not. Notice how it doesn't say "directly attributable to each Product...", it says "actually attributable to each Product". This is the part I find a bit egregious and not sure it will hold up in court, however the terms of the license are written so that the developer of the Unreal product has to pay royalties even if they don't collect money from it themselves.
IP in Game Rules Game rules and other game &quot;mechanics&quot; are not protected by copyright. They are considered to be &quot;ideas, methods or procedures&quot;. 17 USC 102(b) provides that: (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. If the wording of the rules is not the same, and no art or visual design was copied or imitated, the fact that the gameplay is the same does not afford any copyright claim. Claims of Similarity A comment from the OP says: I seek clarification on whether claiming the game is similar to the original would infringe on the original game's intellectual property. If the maker or distributor of the new game states that it is similar to the old game, something like &quot;This is a Flower version of Monopoly.&quot; would that be any sort of IP infringement? Such a statement would in no way infringe any copyright. Would it infringe the trademark rights on the mark &quot;Monopoly&quot;. That is harder to say. The key question in a trademark case is whether the use of a mark, or of words or images that refer to or suggest a mark, would cause reasonable people to falsely think that the new product or service is endorsed, sponsored, or approved by the makers of the old, or to falsely believe that the new product or service comes from the same source as the old one, that is, is made by the same firm or the same people. Whether a particular statement of similarity would do that is a question of fact, and would depend on the details of the statement and the overall presentation of the new game. But a disclaimer can and often does avoid a potential trademark infringement issue. A statement something like: FlowerPoly is not endorsed, approved, or sponsored by Hasbro, the makers of Monopoly, and holders of the trademark on that name. FlowerPoly was created by a completely different group of people. One should not rely on the reputation of Monopoly when deciding to purchase or play FlowerPoly. It would be wise to have the exact details of any statement of similarity, of any disclaimer, and of the name itself, reviewed by a lawyer with experience specifically in trademark law. In general, merely suggesting a similarity is not trademark infringement. Specifically, comparative advertising is not infringement. For example, a new drink could advertise that &quot;NewCola is better than Cokle.&quot; That would not be an infringement of the trademark &quot;Coke&quot;, because it makes clear that the products are different, and come from different sources.
It is reasonable to interpret the statement in their Github repository README.md as a "public domain" license for anything contained there. However, their "usage guidelines" backpedals a bit ("generally are not copyrighted", the misleading implication that content used commercially is subject to restrictions that educational and personal uses are not subject to). Although it is true that works "created by the US government" are not protected by copyright, not everything associated with a government agency is created by the US government. An agency might have a policy that they will not post material that is not copyright-free, there is no practical means of knowing if an item is an actual government work, versus a government-supported or government-hosted work (where copyright is held by someone else). If you trust their implication that all of those items in the repository are indeed government works, then they are free of copyright. I don't know any reason to not believe them, although sometimes the government is wrong and they end up liable big-time for infringement. However... NASA Open Source Agreement Version 1.3 (another copy on a NASA web page) on first glance seems to contradict the "government work" theory. Here, they claim to grant certain rights to users and also impose impose restrictions (including obligatory registration). This does not make any sense for a work that is in the public domain. The license is legally defective in that it fails to fill in relevant blanks (agency name, title of work, URL for obligatory registration). Also notice that the license is only for software. The scope of that license therefore has to be something narrower – it applies only to software, and presumably software that is not "a government work". I have no idea what software NASA could legally give away and is not a government work which is therefore not protected by copyright.
What you are missing is that the original copyright holder can give permission to make derivative works with strings attached. There is no automatic right to derive something from a copyrighted work. Those strings could include constraints on what you create in the process of making the derivative work. Yes it is a string limiting what you can do with something you own, but you would have been warned in the license and had the choice to start from scratch. People do create work-alike software with no copyright strings using two teams and a &quot;clean room&quot; design process. It is a lot harder than modifying something another person has developed. Also, law and someone's understanding of morals need not be aligned at all. And, in patent law, just creating something all by yourself from scratch does not give you ownership. If someone else did it first and got a patent you can't make the item you might think you own. IP law is complex and looking for &quot;fundamentals&quot; may not get you anywhere.
Obviously you may end up voiding warranties, losing on-going support from the manufacturer, or there may be a contract you agreed to stating that you won't do it, but assuming none of that is relevant (e.g. a salvaged Tesla doesn't get support/warranty anyway) is there any law preventing you from modifying your property to remove the limits placed on it? This assumes away one of the biggest issues, which is doing this is almost certainly a breach of contract unless the contract term is void as against public policy (which it probably isn't). So, the manufacturer can sue you for money damages probably equal to the difference in value between the limited and unlimited hardware in the marketplace. The manufacturer might also be able to obtain an injunction against this practice, which could result in the incarceration of someone who knowingly violated this court order for contempt of court, once an injunction is secured from a court to enforce the contract. There is also an anti-hacking statute in the United States, whose plain language appears to prohibit taking actions that override a digital system's security features. Unlocking these hardware features would appear to violate this statute. This is part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and is codified at United States Code Title 17, Section 1201. As Wikipedia explains: 17 U.S.C. 1201 is often known as the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. These provisions changed the remedies for the circumvention of copy-prevention systems (also called "technical protection measures") and required that all analog video recorders have support for a specific form of copy prevention created by Macrovision (now Rovi Corporation) built in, giving Macrovision an effective monopoly on the analog video-recording copy-prevention market. The section contains a number of specific limitations and exemptions, for such things as government research and reverse engineering in specified situations. Although, section 1201(c) of the title stated that the section does not change the underlying substantive copyright infringement rights, remedies, or defenses, it did not make those defenses available in circumvention actions. The section does not include a fair use exemption from criminality nor a scienter requirement, so criminal liability could attach to even unintended circumvention for legitimate purposes. The statute is quite lengthy and full of technical definitions and narrow exceptions and exceptions to exceptions to the general rule. These legal issues have mostly gained media attention in the context of farmers who seek to hack into the built in software of their farm machinery in order to repair it where the manufacturing companies have not cooperated. There have been legislative fixes proposed that would make these prohibition void as against public policy for some specific purposes like doing repairs. There have also been efforts to characterize this kind of business practice as an anti-trust violation. But, none of that legislation has passed in the United States, to the best of my knowledge and belief. But, I am not aware of any high profile legal precedent that has addressed this point but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that there is one. The closest case I could find on point (from the High Court in Australia) is Stevens v. Sony, which holds "that a device allowing PlayStations to play games with a different region code did not violate the anti-circumvention laws, because the mechanism in the PlayStation did not directly prevent the infringement of copyright." I am not personally familiar with non-U.S. law on this topic. Wikipedia reviews some of the applicable law in the E.U. and Australia. According to this Wikipedia entry, pursuant to European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of May 22, 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, E.U. member nations must adopt domestic anti-circumvention statutes that meet certain minimum E.U. standards set forth in the directive. Also according to the same Wikipedia entry: "Australia prohibits circumvention of "access control technical protection measures" in Section 116 of the Copyright Act." In Australia, "Penalties for violation of the anti-circumvention laws include an injunction, monetary damages, and destruction of enabling devices."