Video games make for an interesting copyrightable mixture. Video game source code may qualify as a literary work, while the actual video game may be an audiovisual work similar to a theatrical movie. Video games can also include highly expressive elements, such as unique characters, storylines, and graphical settings that often invoke strong copyright protection by courts. On the other hand, video games also include software elements that serve very specific functional purposes that are often used outside the video game industry. Whether a game can play on a Nintendo Switch or PlayStation without crashing may be equally important to a video gamer’s enjoyment than the expressive content, for example. Being aware of how copyright protection applies to different video game elements is very important to understanding the strengths and weakness in an intellectual property portfolio. READ MORE
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently approved PTAB’s institution of four IPRs despite an arbitration agreement between the patent owner and patent challenger that had already been enforced in a U.S. federal court as barring patent litigation between them. Despite the existence of the contractually agreed arbitration proceeding, PTAB did not even mention the non-statutory “Fintiv factors” which it routinely relies on to deny institution as a matter of discretion in view of parallel proceedings between the parties. This is yet another illustration of PTAB’s erroneous and inconsistent application of the limited discretion afforded to it by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act when making IPR institution decisions. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy has now announced introduction of legislation called The Restoring America Invents Act to explicitly strip PTAB of its “Fintiv factors” discretion. READ MORE
We previously introduced the system and current implementation of China’s Customs IP enforcement. In this second article, we will discuss the procedures and key measures which may lead to effective IP enforcement at Chinese Customs. READ MORE
