As the 21st World Intellectual Property Day is approaching, Zhejiang Superior People's Court released 2020 Top 10 IPR Judicial Protection Cases. Represented by TMT DR Team from Llinks Law Offices LLP, Zhejiang Shenghe Network Technology Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Kaiying Network Technology Co., Ltd. versus Suzhou XianFeng Network Co., Ltd. copyright infringement and anti-unfair competition case (hereinafter referred to as Blue Moon Chuanqi vs. Lie Yan Wu Zun Case) was selected into the list.
In recent years, Change Skin Plagiarism, which means the infringer copying the core mechanism of the game, but replacing the art design, occurs frequently and leads to infringer's illegal grab for market share and damage to the copyright owners. How to ensure right owners get timely and effective judicial remedy and how to accurately apply relevant laws to regulate this kind of infringement are hot and difficult issues to be solved urgently.
In this case, the court explained how to choose a specific protection path for online games and the online games infringement comparison method. Meanwhile, rather than directly identify the online game as movie-like work, the court apply the law by analogy to protect the rights of copyright owners in accordance with the legal loop-filling rule. Besides, what's especially noteworthy in this case is, in order to cease the infringement, the court creatively apply "anticipatory judgment plus provisional injunction" to provide legal remedy for the right owners. This measure has greatly enhanced the timeliness of judicial protection, which is the first case among IPR cases of people's courts at different level. Because of the strong typicality of the case, it was previously selected as one of the 2020 top 10 cases of judicial protection of the digital economy in Hangzhou courts as well.
The judgment of this case clarified the core principles that must be grasped when applying the copyright law to protect online games, put forward a scientific and reasonable practical operation path. It is not only of great reference value for other courts to make judicial decisions but also instructive for the online games developers and practitioners to protect their games and avoid tort.
