The social and mobile game industry is experiencing rapid growth as thousands of gaming companies and developers make their games available on iTunes, Facebook and other platforms in the hope of launching the next “FarmVille” or “Angry Birds.” Even as the luster fades from Zynga Inc.’s IPO, the popularity of social and mobile games remains strong and is expected to expand as sales of tablet computers and smartphones rise. In this competitive landscape, it is not uncommon to find new games that are similar to established popular games, even bearing similar names and features. Success breeds imitation, or depending on your perspective, inspiration and emulation.
Gaming companies have to walk a fine line between developing a game that has game play and features that are familiar and popular, versus becoming the target of an intellectual property infringement suit. Zynga, for example, finds itself on both sides of the line, filing dozens of lawsuits against others for infringement, while being the target of infringement claims itself such as Electronic Arts Inc.’s recent suit claiming that Zynga’s “The Ville” game infringes copyrighted content in EA’s “The Sims Social.” But where is that “line”? When does emulation become infringement? When does taking inspiration from an established game constitute violating another’s IP rights? Like many things in the law, it depends.
