On October 13, 2022, the fourteenth session of the Advisory Office ends
A student of one of the Minsk universities decided to patent the rules of the game he invented and asked how to do it.
The answer surprised the consultantee:
In accordance with paragraph 2 of Article 2 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On Patents for Inventions, Utility Models, Industrial Designs", rules and methods of intellectual activity, games or business activities are not considered inventions.
Article 6 of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On Copyright and Related Rights" does not include the rules of the game as objects of copyright.
At the same time, the game itself is a complex object, individual elements of which may be subject to copyright protection:
box design;
● design of the playing field, cards, chips, dices, etc.;
● characters and objects;
● program code;
● videos;
● soundtrack;
● texts explaining the rules, dialogues and descriptions of the characters, other texts;
● fonts.
In addition, the design of the box, the design of the playing field, cards, chips, dices, as well as characters, objects and equipment of games can be patented as industrial designs.
Equipment used in sports games can also be patented as an invention or utility model.
The second question came from a representative of the manufacturer of holographic products and concerned the specifics of patenting of products labeling method.
Due to the availability of information constituting a trade secret of the consultantee in the form of a production secret (know-how), neither a specific technical question nor an answer to it are published.
A confidentiality agreement has been concluded between the companies.
