Your summary is what the developers of the iPhone app Mino thought (they were some friends of mine; I drew the graphics for the game, and got sucked into several hours of deposition for the case to explain how I had chosen the colors from first principles, etc.). But the judge ruled otherwise, as the GP poster described.
Theoretically game rules cannot be protected in this way, but if you draw the wrong judge, too bad for you. Unless you have several years to kill and the $lots required to take a case up through every level of appeals where you still might lose in the end, I recommend against building a for-profit Tetris-like game.
Comments
Your summary is what the developers of the iPhone app Mino thought (they were some friends of mine; I drew the graphics for the game, and got sucked into several hours of deposition for the case to explain how I had chosen the colors from first principles, etc.). But the judge ruled otherwise, as the GP poster described.
Theoretically game rules cannot be protected in this way, but if you draw the wrong judge, too bad for you. Unless you have several years to kill and the $lots required to take a case up through every level of appeals where you still might lose in the end, I recommend against building a for-profit Tetris-like game.