crazy taxi clone template, questions

Hello, i'm thinking in working in a crazy taxi clone template but today searching on google i found a Wikipedia article; it said about sega registered trademark on crazy taxi game mechanic, the article even said the sega was claimed the copyright over the simpsons game called The Simpsons: Road Rage.

i have read a lot on this forums and other game development forums, that gameplay can't be copyrighted, this lead to my thread question:

will be safe to make a crazy taxi clone game template ?

of course i will not call it crazy taxi clone, but i will try to replicate the gameplay.

all feedback will be welcome.

thanks in advance.

p.s.: here is the link for the wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Taxi

 

The article says that they have a patent. That's not the same as copyright or trademark so whatever you've heard about copyright does not necessarily apply. It's rare that any sort of game mechanic can be patented, but it does happen occasionally. I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand, the patent should outline a very specific set of features, so you should still be able to make a game like Crazy Taxi as long as you don't violate the specifics of the patent. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6200138B1/en

Now, as for exactly how much different your game needs to be- that I don't know. You'd probably need a lawyer for that. There's probably some subjectivity to the matter as well.

If I were going to make a game like this, I would look at games that have similar mechanics but didn't get sued. Games like Driver and GTA have all of the same game mechanics but were different enough to avoid violating the patent.

One important thing about patents that is different from copyright or trademarks is that a patent only lasts 20 years. Since Sega filed the patent in 1998, I think it's likely that the patent has expired, but I'm not a lawyer so I don't know for certain.

 

thank you for the info @kdgalla

 

Simpsons Road Rage is the closest thing I've seen to Crazy Taxi while remaining different and it even ended up in a legal battle.
Link to the Article
A nice excert from this would be

So be careful if your game happens to follow these very vaguely describe gameplay mechanics.

 

thanks @Shiro_Rin

 

Patents usually expire around 20 years from the earliest filing of the patent. as well as this, if you don't pay the legal fees around a patent, they will expire even earlier. in this case though, the Crazy Taxi patent in particular expired only about a year ago (march-may 2019) this means you can use and sell the Invention (or in this case, clone of the game) as much without the permission of the patent creator. This happened to Lego's in the 50's.

This does not mean at all that you can pirate the game, as Sega still has copyright over it. Copyright usually lasts for the length of the creators life (In this case, Sega) as well as an additional 70 years. and even then, it is in the public domain and cannot be sold for money, only redistributed for free.

So as long as you aren't literally ripping the game and reselling it, you should be able to copy the mechanics, and make a similar game to crazy taxi. A more modern reinterpretation would be nice.

Here are my sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/bcx7rk/today_the_patent_on_the_crazy_taxi_game_mechanic/
https://corporate.findlaw.com/intellectual-property/u-s-patent-overview.html
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html

 

Very informative and useful post for beginners!