Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China

Video games are among the most complex creative products of the digital age. A single game may contain software code, artwork, music, text, characters, storylines, user interfaces, dynamic audiovisual displays, gameplay systems, commercial symbols, and platform-based services. This complexity creates difficult legal questions: What exactly is protected? Where is the line between an unprotectable idea and protectable expression? How should courts evaluate similarity between two games? Can game rules or gameplay mechanics receive legal protection? Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China provides a structured and practical guide to these questions under Chinese law. The book begins with an overview of the Chinese video game industry, including market scale, major gameplay genres, and the structure of the game industry chain. It then analyzes the main legal protection mechanisms available for video games in China, including copyright, trademark, patent, anti-unfair competition, administrative regulation, and criminal liability. Special attention is given to the judicial standards for video game infringement. The book discusses protection of game rules, overall screen displays, individual game elements, source code, and methods of comparison between games. It also examines issues commonly seen in practice, such as reskinned games, imitation of gameplay structures, character name protection, game title protection, and the supplementary role of anti-unfair competition law. To provide a comparative perspective, the book introduces leading U.S. video game copyright cases, including Tetris, Triple Town, and Bang!, and compares them with Chinese judicial developments. Through this comparison, the book shows how courts in different legal systems approach similar problems involving creativity, functionality, market competition, and digital expression. This book is designed for lawyers, judges, in-house counsel, game companies, developers, publishers, platform operators, scholars, students, and anyone seeking to understand how China protects intellectual property rights in the video game industry.