Intellectual Property Summer Bulletin 2011

On March 22, Amazon launched the Appstore for Android, bringing video games to the fingertips of thousands of Android users who, like their iPhone and iPad-toting friends, can now purchase and play video games anywhere, anytime. Due to mobile device games' ease of access, highly addictive nature, and low price points, the market for such games has exploded in recent years. With many such games achieving almost cult-like status (think Angry Birds, which has achieved over 100 million downloads across all platforms), the emergence of knockoffs is practically inevitable.

In fact, we have already witnessed a number of copyright disputes between game developers and their alleged infringers, some of which have actually reached litigation. Most recently, on June 16, 2011, Zynga Inc., developer of several of the most popular Facebook games, sued Vostu Inc. in federal court, alleging that Vostu's games "duplicate and incorporate the unique expressions of Zynga's games." For