Trademark vs copyright for a game
By BlockchainSignLast updated
Games have the least protection of anything in this series, and it is by design. The rules — the thing that makes a game a game — are outside copyright entirely, which is why the clone problem is a permanent feature of the industry.
Key takeaways
- Game rules and mechanics are not copyrightable. 17 USC 102(b) excludes systems and methods of operation.
- The expression is: artwork, code, music, written text, characters, board design.
- Trademark covers the title, and is often the only right that actually stops a competitor.
The short answer
You cannot own how a game plays. You can own how it looks, sounds and reads, and what it is called.
This is the single most consequential rule in game IP, and it explains almost every dispute in the field.
Why mechanics are unprotectable
17 USC 102(b) excludes ideas, procedures, processes, systems and methods of operation from copyright. A set of game rules is a system. The Copyright Office says so directly: it does not register game methods, ideas or rules.
The consequence is that a competitor may lawfully:
- Copy your core mechanic exactly
- Reproduce the structure of play
- Match your progression, scoring and balance
What they may not do is copy your art, your code, your text, your characters, or use your title.
This is why the market is full of games that play near-identically with different art. It is not a loophole being exploited; it is the intended operation of the law, which treats game systems as ideas that should stay available.
What is protectable
- Artwork — illustrations, board design, card faces, character art, UI
- Code, as a literary work
- Music and sound
- Written text — rulebook prose (the writing, not the rules it describes), lore, dialogue, flavour text
- Characters, if sufficiently delineated
- The rulebook as a whole, as an original literary work
Note the careful distinction on rules: the rulebook's specific wording is copyrightable expression. The rules it conveys are not. Someone may restate your rules in their own words freely.
What trademark covers
The game's title, and its logo. This is frequently the most valuable right a game publisher holds, because it is what customers search for and what a clone cannot take.
Registration is $350 per class — games commonly fall in class 28 for physical products and class 9 for video games, with class 41 for services.
A distinctive board or component appearance may occasionally be trade dress, subject to the usual non-functionality requirement, which is a real obstacle for game components that exist to be used.
Side by side
| Copyright | Trademark | Patent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rules and mechanics | No | No | Occasionally |
| Rulebook wording | Yes | No | No |
| Artwork and components | Yes | Possibly as trade dress | No |
| Code | Yes | No | No |
| Title | No | Yes | No |
| Characters | Possibly | Possibly | No |
| Duration | Life + 70, or 95 years | Indefinite with use | ~20 years |
Patents on game mechanics do exist and are rare, expensive, and mostly historical curiosities.
Where a timestamp fits
Because mechanics are unprotectable, a game designer's exposure is concentrated in the period before release — during playtesting, pitching to publishers, and showing prototypes at conventions. In that window the material is confidential, unpublished and unregistered.
Timestamping design documents, rule drafts and prototype art fixes what you had before each of those disclosures. It will not stop anyone using your mechanic — nothing will — but it establishes the date of your expression, which is what a claim over the art, text or code would need.
Be clear-eyed about what this does and does not do. It proves a document existed on a date. It creates no right in the mechanic, and if that is what you are trying to protect, the honest answer is that you cannot.
US law. This is general information, not legal advice.