PATENT AND COPYRIGHT PROTECTION FOR VIDEO GAMES IN INDIA: AN ANALYSIS OF LEGAL GAPS AND CHALLENGES
AUTHOR – V.R. MARY RACHEL* & C. SOPHIA JEYAKAR**
* STUDENT AT SCHOOL OF LAW, VELS INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ADVANCED STUDIES (VISTAS)
** ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT SCHOOL OF LAW, VELS INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ADVANCED STUDIES (VISTAS)
BEST CITATION – V.R. MARY RACHEL & C. SOPHIA JEYAKAR, PATENT AND COPYRIGHT PROTECTION FOR VIDEO GAMES IN INDIA: AN ANALYSIS OF LEGAL GAPS AND CHALLENGES, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 6 (6) OF 2026, PG. 801-810, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344. DOI – https://doi.org/10.65393/IJLRV6I6484
ABSTRACT
This chapter undertakes a critical comparative examination of the intellectual property frameworks governing video games in the United States, the European Union, Japan, and China. The objective is not a catalogue of foreign law for its own sake, but rather a substantive evaluation of whether the legal solutions developed in those jurisdictions offer workable models for addressing India’s own documented deficiencies in copyright and patent protection for the gaming sector.
India’s intellectual property framework suffers from persistent gaps: the absence of a statutory definition suited to interactive audiovisual works;[1] the inaccessibility of meaningful patent protection for game technology under Section 3(k) of the Patents Act, 1970;[2] and the inadequacy of the idea-expression dichotomy as applied to game mechanics. Each of the four jurisdictions examined in this chapter has confronted some version of these problems and has developed judicial or legislative responses that deserve careful scrutiny.
The American experience reveals the breadth of protection that early judicial classification of games as audiovisual works can achieve, alongside the risks of an overly permissive patent regime that generates patent thickets harmful to smaller developers. The European Union’s ‘technical effect’ standard for software patents offers a principled middle ground between total exclusion and unrestricted patentability. Japan illustrates how statutory frameworks designed for traditional creative industries can be adapted, through careful judicial interpretation and clear administrative guidance, to accommodate a global gaming industry. China, whose intellectual property law is often underestimated in comparative scholarship, has produced recent judicial decisions on game cloning that go further in protecting game experience than any other jurisdiction and offer a particularly instructive model for a developing gaming economy such as India’s.
The comparative analysis leads to five core lessons, each tied to a specific reform recommendation: the need for a statutory definition of interactive audiovisual works; clearer judicial tools for drawing the line between idea and expression in game systems; adoption of a ‘technical contribution’ standard for game technology patents; measured extension of design protection to game elements; and calibrated expansion of fair dealing exceptions to accommodate transformative creative uses.
[1]Copyright Act, 1957 (No 14 of 1957), s 13. The Act protects ‘original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works’ and ‘cinematograph films and sound recordings’. Video games do not neatly fall within any of these categories.
[2]Patents Act, 1970 (No 39 of 1970), s 3(k). The section excludes ‘a mathematical or business method or a computer programme per se or algorithms’ from patentability.