Microsoft legalities, etc

[aradesh]

Does anyone know what the legal situation with the game minesweeper? Does Microsoft have rights to the concept of the game? The name Minesweeper?

I'm considering attempting to get financial sponsorship for a prize fund for a minesweeper tournament, and I wouldn't want Microsoft complaining.

[wylx]

According to Wikipedia, the game was existent in the 1970s, but I can't seem to find when the name "Minesweeper" came about.

[qqwref]

I don't see anything here - maybe there is no actual trademark?

[aradesh]

Hm. Maybe we could trademarket it as a community btw you need to update your pb scores in your signature.

[aradesh]

It says on http://www.minesweeper.info/wiki/Windows_Minesweeper that Microsoft never acquired copyrights for Minesweeper.

[aradesh]

Done a bit of reading. It would seem that the name Minesweeper is up for grabs for anyone to use any way they like. The concept of the game cannot be patented. However the artwork of for example, the mine image, the flag image, the smiley face image, are by default copyrighted by Microsoft as they released them into the public domain. So for example, they could even take exception to our free clones which use the same artwork.

I was wondering if it would be possible for say a group of us to form a group called "World minesweeper association" or something to that effect, and trademark the name "Minesweeper" to ensure that a company doesn't start complaining about the use of the name for tournaments, etc., at some point in the future. Also with such reassurances and a fancy sounding organization, it would sound good when asking other companies for sponsorship for events.

[qqwref]

I'd be up for helping start something like that. We could run it like the WCA - get a domain, make some regulations, appoint officials. If Tommy's up for it maybe we could have a tournament section that runs off his scoreganizer code, and separates unofficial and official (can only be created by a WMA official, must have an IRL location, etc.) tournaments.

[aradesh]

I believe there was something similar in the past that kind of fell out of existence. Not sure on the details. However I think such a thing would be important. Not to lord over the minesweeper community, but to protect it from outside companies potentially trying to mess with it in the future if it got larger.

[qqwref]

Do you mean the IMC? If so, we could specifically look into what went wrong there and deliberately organize ourselves so we don't fall into the same traps. (I wasn't around at that time but I know several active sweepers were.) For instance, to combat transparency issues, we could start a forum or blog where we would post all rule decisions or official announcements, so that there would be no confusion as to what was actually decided.