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ARTICLE · 03 DECEMBER 2025

Patenting Play: Analyzing Recent Video Game Play Patents

Baker Botts L.L.P.
Baker Botts L.L.P.
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The video game industry is a dynamic space that encourages innovation, with game developers often creating and employing novel technology and game design elements

United StatesIntellectual Property
Jacqueline Chan
Jacqueline Chan

Introduction:

The video game industry is a dynamic space that encourages innovation, with game developers often creating and employing novel technology and game design elements.This is a quickly growing industry: in 2024, Straits Research valued the gaming industry at approximately $221.24 billion and projected the industry to reach $424.23 billion by 2033.1 As a result, gaming companies are constantly looking to protect their innovations in this space with intellectual property protections that can strengthen the company's market position and protect its most prized assets.

Patenting video games is as old as the genre itself. In April 1977, The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") issued Patent 3,728,480 for a ping-pong style game, in what a District Court judge would later go on to call "the pioneer patent in this art."2 Ever since companies have been patenting gameplay elements, controversy from video game enthusiasts has followed, as some claim that such

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