Tetris Holding, LLC. v. Xio Interactive, Inc.

Tetris Holding, LLC (plaintiff) held the copyright for Tetris, a puzzle video game in which a user manipulated game pieces made of colorful square blocks. The pieces came in seven different shapes and fell from the top of the screen before accumulating at the bottom. The user manipulated the falling pieces to fill all spaces along a horizontal line at the bottom of the screen. If the goal was accomplished, the completed line of block vanished, and the user was awarded points and could continue playing. If the pieces accumulated to the top of the screen, the game was over. Tetris gained massive popularity, and Xio Interactive, Inc. (Xio) (defendant) created Mino, a puzzle game based on Tetris. Xio examined Tetris and copied significant amounts of the game to capitalize on Tetris’s popularity. Xio conducted extensive legal research on copyright law and attempted to exclusively copy those elements of Tetris that Xio believed to be uncopyrightable. Xio replicated the Tetris piece structure and options, game board, square-block composition of the pieces, and bright colors, among other game aspects. Tetris Holding filed suit against Xio for infringement of the copyright and trade dress of Tetris. Xio openly admitted to copying Tetris but argued that the copied elements were dictated by functional considerations and the underlying game idea and were not copyrightable. Both parties filed for summary judgment.