![]() However, that only protects the mark “Settlers of Catan.” As long as no one tries to suggest that the Settlers of Catan company is behind the pieces, there should not be a trademark problem. Settlers of Catan is a registered trademark (although apparently only recently). Even if he had patented the rules, that patent would expire in 2015 at the latest, opening the proverbial floodgates in four short years. In this case, it does not appear that Klaus Teuber patented the rules to Settlers of Catan. You can patent a board game to protect the rules of the game. Therefore, in order to protect the free flow of ideas, recipes and game rules are rarely protected by copyright. Copyright protects expressions, not ideas. Game rules, like recipes, have a limited number of ways that they can be expressed. Nor does copyright protect the actual rules of Settlers of Catan. Moreover, Sublime’s pieces are generally more ornate that the official versions.Ĭopyright does not protect the shapes of the tiles (they are designed to fit together, and are therefore most likely “functional objects” outside of the scope of copyright). Copyright might also protect the shapes of the pieces, except these shapes are so generic and utilitarian (rectangles for roads, simple houses for settlements) that any protection would be extremely limited. However, Sublime’s 3D designs make no attempt to copy the images on the tiles. This makes sense – the image on the tile (of pastures, or fields, or rocky quarries, or the like) is just a picture, and pictures are well within the scope of copyright. Instead, copyright protects the design on the game tiles. Importantly, that protection does not cover the entirety of the game. Settlers of Catan is probably protected by copyright. Instead, if you want the pieces you need to download the files, boot up your 3D printer, and make them yourself.ĭoes creating these pieces violate any of Klaus Teuber’s intellectual property rights? In order to answer this question, it probably helps to walk through the analysis for each type of intellectual property right (for a more in depth explanation of how all of these rights work, take a look at the PK whitepaper It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw it Up: 3D Printing, Intellectual Property, and the Fight Over the Next Great Disruptive Technology). In fact, the pieces themselves are not even distributed. In contrast, these new 3D printed pieces are not officially licensed. Settlers of Catan has successfully spun off numerous officially licensed expansion packs, card games, and digital versions (you can play on an Xbox360, a Playstation3, various Apple iProducts, and even a Microsoft Surface table). Also, players are rarely out of the running until the very last turn. One of its most attractive features is that, unlike traditional boardgames like Monopoly, a game of Settlers is usually completed in around an hour. ![]() ![]() It has been heralded by mainstream publications like the Washington Post and generally enjoyed as a fun, easy to learn game. ![]() This development raises the question: is this illegal? If it isn’t, should it be?įor the uninitiated, Settlers of Catan is a wildly popular board game created by a German game designer named Klaus Teuber in 1995. Certain corners of the Internet were abuzz this week with the news that a user named Sublime had uploaded design files to Thingiverse that allow people to 3D print pieces to the wildly popular board game Settlers of Catan. ![]()
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