quote:Original post by merlin9x9 If I''m not mistaken, patents can protect ideas.
You are mistaken. One last time..... you can''t protect ideas except by keeping them secret. Not with trademarks, not with copyright, not with patents, not with voodoo, black magic, white magic, blood sacrifice or when you wish upon a star.
This topic has been covered countless times in these forums and links have been posted to the various government web sites concerned. Those same links can be found here http://www.obscure.co.uk/faq_copy_trade_patent.shtml
Talking of Voodoo I have now hexed this thread. The next person to post a claim that ideas can be protected will die. It might take 80 years (or more) but trust me.... they will die.
Right if you want to make a shoot''m up game like 007 or something. You can as long as it looks different, and has a different name. Infact only 5% of something has to be different from something like it. Not sure if that made sence to you. Like if there was a drawing someone did and I made one like it as long as its at least 5% different. Then its legal.
right. You can reuse ideas, systems, etc. However, they cannot look the same. If you made a mario clone that looked exactly like mario, even if not a single line of code was the same, it would be copyright infiringment. Think of it this way. The game itself cannot be copyrighted. However, the screenshots produced by the game, the names and dialog included in the game, and the title of the game can be copyrighted.
Basiclly, make your clone a little different looking.
I can imagine a world without hate, a world without fear, a world without war. And I can imagine us attacking that world, because they would never expect it. -Jack Handy
