From electronic slot machines and casino games to online betting platforms, the gaming industry heavily relies on intellectual property to protect its innovations and graphics, and to prevent competitive copycats. So, what is intellectual property? Intellectual property is a broad description of rights which protect intangible creations, can be owned, and can be enforced against others’ use for a certain period of time. The categories of intellectual property (“IP”) that we will address in this article are patents, trademarks, and copyrights, but there are other categories of IP that will be separately covered, such as trade dress and trade secrets. The gaming industry is increasingly focused on protecting its IP rights in recent years. Most of the major gaming companies own hundreds of patents, copyrights, and trademarks and are continually applying for new IP protections.
So, you want to grow your IP portfolio, but how do you choose what IP protections you should focus on? We’ll show you in this article how you can potentially use three major IP protections in connection with a single game to provide a broad scope of protection.
