A proteção dos videojogos pela propriedade intelectual

Abstract

The main theme of this thesis is to study the connection between intellectual property and videogames. The objective underlying the analysis of this theme was to bring to the national reality the multiple advances that other countries have made in this field, because the national doctrine is still very focused on trying to frame the videogames within certain type of work. As such, we started by presenting the general picture of videogames, where we mentioned what they are, what is their importance (in general and to the law) and how they can be protected within author rights. We also analysed the evolution of the copyright system in the United States of America. Then, we studied the different thesis around the qualification of videogames by following an approach that consisted in analysing the different types of work and, in the end, concluding whether videogames could fit in any of those types or if the best solution would be the classify videogames as a type of work of their own. We chose to include videogames within the multimedia works, but we supported the idea of creating a new regulation to accommodate the particularities of these works. After that, we explored the connection between videogames and patents, where we gave greater emphasis to the practical approach by analysing an example of an invention that was related to videogames. After such analysis, we concluded that patents can be a way of protecting certain characteristics of videogames. Finally, we studied some peculiarities of videogames, namely the technological protection measures and the modifications of videogames created by a third party. In the technological protection measures we opted for a practical analysis by analysing the Nintendo case where we concluded that there should be given greater emphasis to the principle of proportionality in order to determine if the technological protection measures were appropriate. In the modifications, after understanding what they were, we included them in derivative works and composite works and we saw examples of their integration in End User License Agreements. By the end we concluded that author protection must prevail over the user freedom to make modifications to the work.

Date of Award	20 Jun 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Nuno Sousa e Silva (Supervisor)