Liverpool Lawyers and intellectual property law specialists McEntegart Legal highlight some important issues that come to light from the big anticipated launch from Rovio – creators of the Angry Birds games. The new game “Amazing Alex” is based on a game originally called “Casey’s Contraptions” which was created by independent games developer Noel Llopis. The intellectual property was “sold” to Rovio. The key factors that should be looked at are
- Was it an assignment, ie do Rovio now have outright ownership or were the rights licensed to them?
- Were all the rights in the intellectual property transferred to Rovio? Did they get the rights to the merchandise rights, the rights to the artwork and code?
- Are the original owners entitled to royalty payments.
- Was there a one-off payment? if so was it up front and how was it calculated. Was it calculated on the development costs of original owner or anticipated profits over s set period.
All these questions should be asked when you are dealing with the sale or licensing of intellectual property.