Editor's Note
SINGAPORE-LAW-PRESS previously reported that Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China, an English-language monograph by lawyer Weijie Zhu and published by the Press, had been purchased by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Germany for its specialist library collection.
The book has now been formally added to the Institute's collection, with the catalogue record available through its online library system.
Shanghai Landing Law Offices, where the author practises, has also published a report on this development through its WeChat official account. We reproduce the article below to share this latest news with our readers.
Source: The WeChat official account of Shanghai Landing Law Offices, “Landing News | Weijie Zhu's English-Language Monograph Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China Acquired and Catalogued by the Max Planck Institute.”
Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China, an English-language book written by lawyer Weijie Zhu and published by SINGAPORE-LAW-PRESS, has been acquired by the internationally recognised Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition and formally added to its specialist library collection. The book had previously entered the National Library of Singapore's collection, with its bibliographic and holdings records available through the official catalogue of the National Library Board, Singapore.
The Institute arranged the acquisition through Galda+Leuchter GmbH, a specialist academic bookseller in Germany, which purchased the book from SINGAPORE-LAW-PRESS on its behalf.
Illustration: Catalogue record for Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China in the library system of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.
Illustration: Bibliographic and holdings records for the book in the National Library Board, Singapore's catalogue.
The inclusion of the book traces a path from formal publication and national-library holdings to the specialist collection of an international research institution. It also marks a further step in the international documentation and dissemination of Weijie Zhu's longstanding work in intellectual-property litigation and scholarship.
Based in Munich, Germany, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition is a research institute within the internationally influential Max Planck Society. It specialises in intellectual-property law, competition law and innovation research, and has an important place in scholarship on intellectual property and innovation law.
SINGAPORE-LAW-PRESS focuses on carefully selected publications in law, technology and business. Through professional editorial assessment, it works with legal practitioners, university academics and researchers to publish works of professional and scholarly value. Inclusion in the National Library of Singapore's collection helps establish a formal, durable record of its publications.
About Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China
Illustration: Cover of Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China.
This English-language professional monograph examines the legal framework and judicial practice of intellectual-property protection for video games in China.
Video games are no longer merely entertainment products. They are complex digital works combining computer software, moving images, visual art, music, literary expression, characters, interactive rules, user data and business models. As China's video-game industry has developed, disputes over game rules, screen images, characters, source code, gameplay mechanics and so-called “reskinned games” have become increasingly significant issues in intellectual-property theory and practice.
Taking China's framework for the protection of video-game intellectual property as its subject, the book systematically examines copyright, trademark and patent protection, unfair competition, administrative regulation and criminal liability under Chinese law. It also addresses standards for identifying video-game infringement and compares developments in Chinese and US copyright case law concerning video games.
In analysing infringement, the book focuses on intellectual-property protection for game rules, the copyright status of the overall audiovisual presentation, protection strategies for individual game elements, source-code protection and methods of assessing substantial similarity between video games.
Drawing on Chinese judicial practice, the book also discusses common industry disputes involving reskinned games, imitation of gameplay mechanics, bad-faith registration of character names and confusion over game identifiers.
The book further uses US video-game copyright cases as comparative material to examine differences and developments in copyright protection, substantial-similarity analysis and the limits of protection for game rules in China and the United States.
Rather than treating infringement disputes in one industry as an isolated subject, the book approaches video games through legal rules, judicial practice, technical facts and industry development. It seeks to identify the boundaries of protection for these highly digital products within existing intellectual-property law and to introduce China's framework and practice systematically to an international professional readership.
The value of a professional monograph does not end with publication.
Professional work developed through long-term legal practice and scholarship can be organised into a formal book and then made part of national-library and international research collections. This is a process through which an individual's accumulated research becomes a lasting documentary record with international reach.
The addition of Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China to the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition's collection is another milestone in that process. It also brings English-language research on China's video-game industry, intellectual-property adjudication and digital-technology law to a wider international professional audience.
For professional scholarship, publication is not the endpoint. Library and research-institution collections give research a longer life and allow it to continue serving specialist inquiry and international exchange.
Research grounded in Chinese practice deserves to be recorded, preserved, studied and made visible to international readers.
About the Author | Weijie Zhu
Lawyer at Shanghai Landing Law Offices; California attorney and patent agent. Contact: weijie.zhu@landinglawyer.com.
Weijie Zhu has more than ten years of legal experience, with a longstanding focus on intellectual-property scholarship and litigation. Her interests include intellectual property, internet and information technology, and the intersection of law and technology. She has handled a wide range of intellectual-property and internet disputes involving video games, computer software, copyright, trademarks, unfair competition, trade secrets and patents.
She has an interdisciplinary background in law, English and computer science. She holds a bachelor's degree in English from Donghua University, a bachelor's degree in law from East China University of Political Science and Law and a Master of Laws from the National University of Singapore. She is currently pursuing a master's degree in computer science at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
In 2023, Zhu published the professional legal book 知识产权纠纷裁判标准实务精解 with Law Press China. It surveys judicial standards and practical issues in copyright, trademarks, patents, unfair competition and trade secrets, and covers emerging topics including online games, NFT copyright, data-related infringement, conflicts between trademarks and enterprise names, and interpretation of patent claims. The book has subsequently entered the collections of the National Library of China, Shanghai Library, Zhejiang Library, Shenzhen Library and various university libraries.
From long-term intellectual-property litigation and scholarship to Chinese and English professional monographs, and onward to national libraries and internationally recognised research collections, Zhu continues to advance interdisciplinary work and international communication linking intellectual property, digital technology and legal practice.
Republication Notice
This article is republished from the WeChat official account of Shanghai Landing Law Offices. Its original title concerned the acquisition and collection of Weijie Zhu's English-language book Intellectual Property Protection for Video Games in China by the Max Planck Institute.
The Chinese republication makes only appropriate adjustments to the headline and layout; the original Chinese article's substantive content is unchanged. This English version has been translated for publication on the SINGAPORE-LAW-PRESS website.