Study On Intellectual Property Protection Of Video Game Rules

The current game industry has become an industry that has made tremendous contributions to economic development,and as the game is constantly updated and iterated,the means of game infringement is constantly updated and iterated.From the initial low-level copy,it gradually evolved into a high-level "change of skin" in which all game backgrounds such as art were avoided,while numerical planning,skill description,skill system,and many other game rules were completely or substantially similar.This kind of plagiarism has cloned the most valuable part of the game design,which still lies in the fuzzy region of copyright protection.That will undoubtedly contribute to the problem of plagiarism in game industry and suppress the enthusiasm of creation.In China's judicial practice and academic research,there has been controversy over whether the rules of the game can be protected by copyright law and how to use intellectual property law system to protect it.There are two points of view about it,one is that game rules fall into the category of idea and should not be protected by copyright law,while the other is that game rules can be divided into abstract simple ones and complex concrete ones.The design of complex and detailed game rules cannot be contained by game idea,which may fall into the scope of expression in copyright law.As for the protection path of game rules,the academic circle and the judicial practice circles also have disputes on it.The viewpoints are divided into copyright law protection and anti-unfair competition law protection.The author believes that there are two reasons for the current disputes over the copyright attribute of game rules.Firstly,there is no definite extension of the rules of the game,which means the content of specific game design is not included in the scope of the games rules for discussion.Secondly,the "expression of game rules" is misunderstood as game rules themselves.Games rules fall into the category of ideas because of their practicality and cannot be protected by copyright law.But the "expression of game rules",such as game instructions and continuous screen,can be protected by copyright law under certain conditions.But it still offers very limited protection.The fact that the rules of the game cannot be included in the copyright law system does not mean that they cannot be protected.Copying game rules is a violation of business ethics and is an infringement of the rights and interests of game developers which can be brought into the anti-unfair competition law system for protection.This is the most reasonable way to deal with the problem of game rules plagiarism now.Although there are people think that game rules can be protected by patent law,the author believes that game rules are essentially "rules and methods of intellectual activities" which is clearly excluded from the scope of the object of authorization by article 25 of the Patent Law.Therefore,this paper mainly discusses the copyright law issues of game rules and their anti-unfair competition law protection path.This paper mainly adopts the methods of combining theory research with application research and combining general principle with case analysis,using documents analysis method,jurisprudential hermeneutic method,comparative research method and case analysis method.In view of the core issues to be studied,starting from the game design,combining with the current domestic legislation and international treaties,the author analyzes the legislative purpose of copyright law,different judicial practice at home and abroad and the Thought and Expression Dichotomy Principle with emphasis,in order to define the rules of the game,judge its copyright attributes and try to find a suitable path to protect the rules of game.The article mainly includes the introduction part and three chapters.The introduction part introduces the research object of this paper,that is,the intellectual property law issues involved in game rules.The topic selection has theoretical value and practical significance.Chapter one mainly discusses the following topics: Firstly,game rules are a guide to players' behavior and there are practical methods.Secondly,game rules are only part of the game design which also includes the plot and other specific presentation.Thirdly,game rules is different from the expression of game rules,the expression of game rules is the specific transformation of game rules.The second chapter mainly discusses game rules fall into the scope of idea under copyright law and the current situation of providing copyright law protection for game rules in judicial practice.This chapter proposes that the expression of game rules can be protected by copyright law under certain circumstances.However,such protection is very limited.Chapter two also points out that although the existing copyright law system cannot protect the rules of the game,based on American juridical practice,game rules' similarity can be used as a reference to judge the similarity of overall expressions of the games.Chapter three mainly discusses that the path of anti-unfair competition law protection of game rules is the most reasonable protection path at present and it will not conflict with the application of copyright law.Among which,under certain conditions,game rules plagiarism may fall within the scope of article 2of the Anti-unfair Competition Law,meanwhile,plagiarism of non-general and symbolic rules can also be applied analogously to the provisions of Article 6 of the Anti-unfair Competition Law.It is hoped that the research in this paper can solve the intellectual property law issues involved in game rules to a certain extent,and it can bring some help to the development of judicial protection of game works in China.