Russia to allow patenting of skins and game characters
Soon in Russia, it will be possible to patent game characters and their visual appearance. During the "Era of IP" conference, Rospatent head Yury Zubov announced that such an opportunity will appear as early as January 2027:
To patent hypergraphic user interfaces, to patent skins in games, various clothing in virtual reality. [...] And in the future, it will be easier and more reliable to monetize them and extract profit from them. Such a law will come into force in January next year.
Previously, the system for protecting game characters was built on copyright, which arises automatically at the moment a video game is created. In addition, large studios registered two-dimensional images of characters or their 3D models as trademarks for certain classes (games, souvenir products, clothing). According to Yulia Tishina, executive director of "Igroprom", such a tool is effective, but it is very expensive and tied "to specific classes of goods and services, and not to the essence of game content".
According to Tishina, the new patent will be in demand among medium and large studios, and "a big wave of patenting" should not be expected from indie developers.
For marketplaces and app stores, Tishina believes, the patent will become an "iron argument" for pre-trial blocking of counterfeits.
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