Article Instance

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{
    "pk": 62937,
    "title": "Patenting Video Gameplay",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "<p style=\"text-indent: 40px;\">Gameplay is the core of video games, a two-hundred-billion-dollar business larger than the film and music industries combined. For years, commentators and public interest groups have claimed that video gameplay patents are stifling innovation—concerns that have garnered little attention from scholars or courts. That may soon change. Recent literature speculates that gameplay patents are rare and that challenges in acquiring them have forced companies to prioritize “copy-resistant” game elements such as high-definition graphics and sprawling open worlds. But advances in artificial intelligence are making such elements increasingly easy to recreate, prompting a renewed interest in gameplay innovation and a growing urgency to assess the merits of gameplay patents. This Article provides the empirical and analytical foundation for understanding the existence and merits of video gameplay patents. It trains a naive Bayes classifier to provide novel insight into gameplay patenting trends, uses case studies to identify distinguishing features of desirable video gameplay patents, and shows how recent Federal Circuit decisions impose stricter patentability requirements for video gameplay than the gameplay of physical games. In sharp contrast to the prevailing view among commentators, this Article argues that certain video gameplay patents can benefit the industry. It further argues that adopting the analysis from physical gameplay cases would create a new class of beneficial video game patents, providing critical protections to an industry under threat.</p>",
    "language": null,
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [],
    "section": "Article",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gx3t8rv",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Gregory",
            "middle_name": "D.",
            "last_name": "Schwartz",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2026-02-10T02:07:00Z",
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        "type": "pdf",
        "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/ucilr/article/62937/galley/48631/download/"
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}