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IT / Global VR Lawsuit Concludes
The lawsuit between Incredible Technologies (IT) and Global VR is effectively over, with the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upholding the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois' rejection of IT's application for a preliminary injunction against Global VR in its copyright/trade case. IT argued that Global VR's PGA Tour Golf video game infringed the copyright on its Golden Tee video game with particular reference to the control panel and trackball system of operating the game, however, the Courts said, "while there arguably are more ways than one to explain how the trackball system works, the expressions on the control panel of Golden Tee are utilitarian explanations of that system and are not sufficiently original or creative to merit copyright protection."
The Judge said that because the element of creativity was slight, it can only be protected against identical copying, which does not exist in this case. Further, the Courts found the control panel and the trackball system are functional, and so can not be protected, "The trackball almost necessarily must be in the center of the control panel so that right- and left-handed players can use it equally well. It must not be so close to the upright video display that a player would smash her hand into the screen too force-fully after making a shot. Global VR claims that the buttons must be aligned across the center of the control panel for ease of manufacturing."
With regards to arguments about copyright protection for video imagery, the courts found that protection did not apply to elements of the video display that were indispensable to an accurate video representation of a game of golf, such as wind meter and club selection features. The court said the game selection features such as the menu screens which indicate the number of players and other variables of the game are common to the video-game format, and therefore are not protected by copyright.
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