Sheridans' Alex Tutty on why Stick Sports is right to protect its trademark

Given the relative infancy of the video games industry on mobile – and, naturally, the prevalence of smaller, less experienced studios as a result – it's not surprising that many developers seem to be sleepwalking into copyright disputes with rival firms.

The natural reaction of most of those watching on – no doubt owing much to the fraudulent activities of the likes of Edge Games' Tim Langdell – is to side with the accused, the legal claims of the prosecutors dismissed as an act of greed.

As Sheridans would attest, however, some challenges are perfect valid.

Indeed, given the London based lawyer firm has represented companies on both sides of such disputes (Sheridans currently working for Stick Sports on its current trademark claim), Sheridans arguably has a unique perspective of just when and why developers have the right – both legally and morally – to protect their IPs to such a degree.

Speaking to Pocket Gamer in a feature blowing open the various ins and outs of such trademark disputes, Sheridans associate Alex Tutty said games are automatically covered by certain portions of copyright law upon release.

Numerous elements – such as text and music – are protected from the word go, meaning any game that has "copied a substantial part of a copyright protected element" from another title can be challenged, whether said part was actually insignificant to the offender's game or not.

"Essentially by comparing screenshots, substantial part of party A's screenshot should appear in party B's screenshot in order for there to be copyright infringement," Tutty said.

"If when comparing the screenshots it is clear that an ordinary person would look at both and conclude that one must have been copied from the other then the case of infringement can be more easily made."

Broadly speaking, this is why games in Gameloft's library – N.O.V.A and Modern Combat – are perfectly legal and have never been challenged by rival studios, even though they arguably take heavy inspiration from Halo and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare respectively.

In terms of this branch of copyright law, both games are considered original pieces of software, created from the ground up and merely inspired by rival shooters rather than directly copying them.

The name game

Indeed, rather than actual assets, it's the names of the games themselves that has resulted in the most legal disputes of late.

There are key differences between Lima Sky's abandoned attempts to protect Doodle Jump, however, and Stick Sports' recent claim on the 'Stick' name, attested Tutty.

Crucially, Stick Sports' claim relates to the use of the word "Stick" in all sports titles.

In comparison, Lima Sky's proposed challenge was somewhat less stable, because the developer's rights pertain to the name "Doodle Jump" as a whole, rather than the word "Doodle" on its own.

In essense, it means there's a more defined relationship between Stick Sports' Stick Cricket and any titles on the App Store with "Stick" in their name - in court, it would be be claimed that such games used a name that is "identical to a registered mark for identical goods".

In comparison, any games containing the word "Doodle" would only be considered to be using "a similar mark for identical goods" - a case that would give those representing Lima Sky far less leverage in court.

Planning ahead

As such, Tutty's stance seems to be that such clashes are easily avoidable, but it's not down to platform holders to ensure all of the studios on board play ball.

Instead, developers themselves should do their homework before beginning work on a new title.

"When starting out on a new game have a look to see if there are some games with similar names as the one you want to use around," he said.

"The trade mark registry databases are reasonably user friendly and should be searched for identical and similar names in both the computer games classes and other related classes. If there is nothing identical on the databases, developers should consider registering the mark."

"If there are concerns consider discussing them with a lawyer who works in games and put together a strategy. In some cases it might be worth discussing with the party who might complain or thinking of another name.

"In either case registering a trademark is best done by a trademark attorney or lawyer as while the filing can be straightforward the drafting of the specifications and dealing with the registration is much more easily done by an individual specialising in this area."

Thanks to Alex for his time.

You can read the full article on video game copyright law over on Pocket Gamer.