creating games - Intellectual property question

Has anyone here created any kind of game that needed to be protected in any way?

Are there any good resources to easily understand what I need to do in order to protect my idea?

Quote: heatmap

Has anyone here created any kind of game that needed to be protected in any way?

Are there any good resources to easily understand what I need to do in order to protect my idea?

Many of us here have patented games. In the U.S. now it is hard to patent board games and table games. If you can add an electronic component it is much easier to patent.

Quote: DRich

Many of us here have patented games. In the U.S. now it is hard to patent board games and table games. If you can add an electronic component it is much easier to patent.

This game is 100% a computer game. Do I need to have a story or produce a book or something in order to make it tangible that someone can actually hold?

You need to define the elements of the game that are unique and haven't been used in other games. Most video games just get copyrighted because there are not enough new elements to patent.

Good luck.

Quote: DRich

You need to define the elements of the game that are unique and haven't been used in other games. Most video games just get copyrighted because there are not enough new elements to patent.

Good luck.

Let me refine hopefully without giving you the idea.

I do not believe the elements of the game are unique as in this is something that anyone can do themselves and to this day do it. People normally gather these elements themselves, but I want to mass produce and sell these elements. No one does the mass production. The second thing is that I haven’t necessarily created a game but rather have applied gamification to a process that people normally do but have created an app that helps them achieve their goals and follow along with the game. The app doesn’t actually contain anything new either because it’s filled with programs that could and have been created separately by other people.

Also I have found exactly one patent which directly talks about what I want to do but it doesn’t describe what it is and roughly defines the term mathematically.

My searchin skills aren’t that great so there may be more patents about it but I can’t think of any synonyms for the term I want to make a game out of .

Now that I think of it, I know of specifically one process within my process that is patented.

My next question is how do I work with anyone who owns a patent to make sure that when I need to implement that process into my process that they are not going to sue me because patents don’t necessarily have contact into on them.

Go to a patent attorney and have them run a professional search. If conflicts come up that attorney may be able to help you license some of the I.P. from the other party.

Patent searches are usually reasonable priced.