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OffTopic > Pipe Dream rights
#53564 - sgeos - Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:06 am
Who has the rights to Pipe Dream at this point?
-Brendan
#53604 - tepples - Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:35 pm
"Intellectual property" and "the rights to" a given entertainment franchise are dangerous terms when misapplied, conflating trademarks, copyrights, and patents. By "rights" are you talking about trademarks on the name, copyrights on the code and assets, or patents on the gameplay process? There's a major difference in that the first two are easily circumvented (as seen in Emlith and EmPipe), but patents are the main blocker for a free software reimplementation of a game.
Background
The legal screen of Pipe Dream for NES says TM & ? Lucasarts, developed by The Assembly Line and Entertainment International Limited.
The most recent game to use the PIPE DREAM name and the gameplay process used in other games of that name was probably Pipe Dreams 3D for PS1.
Developer: Sick Puppies (a studio that appears to be affiliated with Empire Interactive)
Publishers: Empire Interactive and Take Two Interactive
Trademark
The USPTO registrations of Lucasarts' trademark on PIPE DREAM has lapsed. But there is still a trademark on PIPE DREAMS 3D assigned to Empire and an "initially refused" trademark on PIPE DREAM assigned to Kindred Inc. I'd recommend that you don't use the word DREAM in the title of a clone, as DREAM seems to be the most arbitrary or fanciful word of the trademark.
Copyright
As long as you don't disassemble proprietary code and don't rely too closely on the ornamental graphic elements of the existing implementations when making your version, you shouldn't have a problem here.
Patent
The manual for Pipe Dream for NES doesn't have any patent or patent-pending notices. Searching USPTO.gov for patents assigned to Lucasfilm or Lucasarts or Assembly Line or Entertainment International didn't turn up anything relevant.
If you have a copy of Pipe Dreams 3D, read its manual and legal screens closely for patent notices. If there aren't any, then you can probably assume that either the game is unpatented or the patent holder is not interested in using the patents to extort royalties from free software. _________________ -- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.