Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!mcnc!rti!dg-rtp!ellerbe!poirier
From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Tetris variants
Summary: What's the beef, exactly?
Message-ID: <1990Jun13.214238.15312@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Date: 13 Jun 90 21:42:38 GMT
References: <21774@snow-white.udel.EDU> <1990Jun12.195107.5899@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <25270@usc.edu>
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Reply-To: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (  Poirier local)
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In article <25270@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
>In article <1990Jun12.195107.5899@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>>
>>The legally defendable item is not the game code; the valuable intellectual
>>property is the game design.
>
>Sorry Kent, but you're wrong on this one.  BOTH the game code and the game
>design can be protected: the first by copyright, the second one by patent.
>So far, ELROG, the Russian author and Nintendo have used only copyrights
>for protection (though I would assume a patent is being sought).

That assumption doesn't seem to be addressed one way or the other by the
available evidence.  Let me quote the relevant portion of Fred's posting
of Spectrum Holobyte's letter:

>Below is a copy of the letter I received from Phillip Adams, president
>of Spectrum Holobyte:
>...
>Tetris has never been a public domain product, and has never been put on
>a bulletin board by the legal owners.  While I understand that Tetris is a
>simple game, it is quite a unique concept.  The seven falling blocks (the
>mind remembers 7 plus or minus 2) are a very essential part of the game.
>We have a contractual obligation to protect the rights of ELORG (the 
>Soviet Licensor) as well as Alexey Pajitnov, to insure they are
>compensated for this property.  We did file suit against another software
>company to block its 2-D version of a similar game and it was taken out
>of their product.  To change the colors of the blocks or have the
>"Rubiks" cube made out of wood doesn't make it a different product either.

That is the SH president and not (necessarily) a lawyer.  I hope he's not
a lawyer, because he has mingled arguments for copyright infringement
with arguments for patent infringement, without even once mentioning the
words "copyright" *or* "patent".  He never states which rights he is
trying to protect, nor which rights are claimed to exist.  I get the
impression, in fact, that Mr. Adams either doesn't know, doesn't care,
or doesn't understand the difference.

(Marco:)
>	IDEAS CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED, THEY CAN ONLY BE PATENTED!

Exactly.

	Cheers,
	Charles Poirier   poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com